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ISMS 



OLD AND NEW 



WINTER SUNDAY EVENING SERMON-SERIES FOR 1880-81 

DELIVERED IN THE FIRST BAPTIST 

CHURCH, CHICAGO 



BY THE PASTOR 

GEORGE C. LORIMER 

MEMBER OF VICTOKIA INSTITUTE, THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 



'U 



Till at length no heavenly Ism any longer coming down upon us, Isms from 

the other cjiiarter have to mount up. 

CaHyle's ''Past and Present " 




CHICAGO 

S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY 

1881 



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Copyright, 1881, 
By S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY. 



, /^ ^ 

I KNIGHT & LEONARD . i 



TO 

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, CHICAGO, 

THESE DISCOURSES ARE INSCRIBED 

WITH GRATEFUL MEMORIES OF 
UNWAVERING AND UNCEASING KINDNESS 

TO THE AUTHOR. 



^My love be with you all in Christ Jesus, Amen.'' 



While it is preeminently the duty of the pulpit to 
expound the doctrines and precepts of Holy Writ, there 
are times when it should confront and challenge the 
insidious errors which unfit the public mind to receive 
attentively and believingly its expositions. Exegesis, 
however eloquent and elaborate, will be as powerless, 
morally and religiously, as the learned interpretations 
of dusty Egyptian hieroglyphics, if confidence is seriously 
impaired in the Divine origin of the Book whose teach- 
ings it seeks to unfold. The unclean spirit must be 
cast out, and the house be swept and garnished, before 
the spirit of truth will find there a welcome and a sure 
asylum. We invite the wayward to accept Christ and be 
saved, and when we chide them for not doing so, we fre- 
quently overlook the fact that they are in sympathy with 
forms of thought which are irreconcilable with the claims 
of that volume on whose authority rests the duty so ear- 
nestly enjoined. Hamilton says, "Plato in his Ph^edo 
demonstrated the immortality of the soul from its sim- 
plicity; and in the Republic demonstrated its simplicity 
from its immortality," a species of reasoning still in vogue, 
and by many highly esteemed, but which is utterly inade- 
quate to meet the subtle and protean infidelity of our 
age. Xever will its enthusiastic course be arrested, nor 
its illusions be dispelled, nor the asbestos fire it is kindling- 
be quenched, and the Gospel achieve its triumph over both 
head and heart until, abandoning the petitio principii in 
our methods, we fight the enemy with its own weapons, 
and prove at least that it is not invulnerable. 

This conviction led to the preparation of the accom- 
panying sermons. Working for Christ in a community 
distinguished almost as much by its mental restlessness as 
by its business activity, the author became convinced if 
he would promote in the highest sense the religious life of 
the unconverted in his congregation he must diminish 
their confidence in certain prevailing errors, and disengage 



them from their fetters. His endeavors were so favorably 
received that he has ventured to seek for his series a 
wider sphere of usefulness, by giving the discourses to 
the press. They are not, however, printed precisely as 
they were delivered. They have been subject to such 
revision as the cares of an exacting pastorate, enhanced 
by the labors incident to the formation of a new church 
and the building of a house of worship, would permit; 
and they have been increased in number by the addition 
of several that were not included in the original course, 
of which the one on Buddhism is a sample, which was 
preached under a different title soon after the appearance 
of the beautiful poem which it commends and reviews. 

In dealing with such themes as are presented in this 
volume, especially within the limits usually prescribed to 
sermons, an author will find himself frequently baffled by 
the immeasurableness of the territory he has to traverse, 
and by the shadowy vagueness of the land he seeks to in- 
vade. Dr. Johnson has said, " There are objections against 
a plenum and also against a vacuum, but one or the other 
must be true." Verily; but how much wearisome think- 
ing and how much wearisome writing would be needed to 
answer all these objections, and how much more of both 
would be required to completely fathom the emptiness of 
unbelieving speculation, and to vindicate the fullness of 
Christian truth. This the author of these discourses has 
keenly felt; and he has done, not the best that could be 
done, but the best that he could do under the circum- 
stances. While not attempting an exhaustive treatment 
of these Isms, he has tried to point out their startling- 
dissonances, their thought-encircling darkness, and their 
comfortless, hopeless, soul-freezing tendencies; and he has 
tried to help his readers to grasp more deeply and feel 
more intensely those essential doctrines of religion that 
meet the necessities of our spiritual life, as the celestial 
poles coincide with the axis of our revolving world. As 
Lord Byron says in Childe Harold, "what is writ is 
writ"; and the author can only "pray that it may not 
"die into an echo," but prove a word of hope to many a 
troubled heart, — a living seed, which, however lowly and 
insignificant, may not altogether prove either flowerless or 
leafless. 



co]^te:n"ts. 



I. 

AGNOSTICISM. 
Or the Impregnability of Igxoraxce, - - - - 9 

II. 

ATHEISM. 

Or the Superflfousness op Deity, 40 

III. 
PANTHEISM. 

Or the Deification of the Universe, - - - 62 

IV. 

MATERIALISM. 

Or the Theory of Mindless Mechanism, - - - 82 

V. 
NATURALISM. 

Or the World Without a Sovereign, •• - - 101 

VI. 

PESSIMISM. 

Or the Mystery of Human Suffering, - - - 127 

VIL 
BUDDHISM. 
Or the Light of Asia and the Light of the 

World, - 156 



Vlil CONTENTS. 

VIII. 
UNITARIANISM. 

Or the Superhuman Manhood of Christ, - - 182 

IX. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

Or the Modern Necromancy, 205 

X. 

SKEPTICISM. 
Or the Unreasonableness of Doubt, - - - - 229 

XI. 

LIBERALISM. 
Or the Limits of Thought-Freedom, - - - - 250 

XII. 
FORMALISM. 

Or the Relation of Shadow to Substance, - 267 

XIII. 

DENOMINATIONALISM. 

Or Christian Unity in Diversity, 284 

XIV. 

MAMMONISM. 

Or the Savageness of Money-Greed, - - - - 303 

XV. 

PAUPERISM. 
Or the Problem of Poverty, - - - - = - - 326 

XVI. 

ALTRUISM. 

Or the Law of Self-Sacrifice, 345 



ISMS OLD AND NEW. 



AGNOSTICISM. 

*' To the Unknown God." Acts xvit, 23. 

" And toward me now, the self-same paths I see a pilgrim steer. 
Halt, wanderer! halt! — and answer me. — What, pilgrim, seek'st 
thou here? 

To the world's last shore 

I am sailing o'er. 
Where life lives no longer to anchor alone. 
And gaze on creation's last boundary stone. 
Thou sail'st in vain. — Return! Before thy path, infinity! 
And thou in vain! — Behind me spreads infinity to thee! 

Fold thy wings, drooping, 

O thought, eagle swooping! 
Oh, fantasie, anchor! The voj^age is o'er: 
Creation, wild sailor, flows on to no shore! " 

Lyttori's Schiller. 

IN a curious book, called The Rosicriicians, an Eng- 
lish peasant is represented as making an important 
discovery. As he was completing a trench on the close 
of a long day's work, his pick suddenly struck something- 
hard, which emitted sparks. On examination it proved to 
be an oblong slab of granite, in the center of which was 
inserted an iron ring. After considerable labor he re- 
moved the stone, and found that it covered an entrance 
leading to subterranean chambers. Although it required 
no small degree of courage to do so, he determined to 
descend the rude and broken steps and attempt to pene- 



10 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

trate the darkness. Down he clambered, and pressed on 
until the aperture above hhn had disappeared and the 
blackness of night enswathed him. He continued, how- 
ever, to persevere in his perilous journey, arid "at the 
foot of a steeper staircase of stone he saw a steady 
though pale light " gleaming. " This was shining as if 
from a star, or coming from the center of the earth." 
Naturally enough his alarm increased; but, resolutely 
hushing the voice of fear, he decided to explore the cave 
yet farther, and if possible solve the mystery. But as 
he cautiously felt his way he thought he heard noises 
as of horses and wagons over his head, which, combined 
with strange aromas that filled the cavern, heightened 
his bewilderment and apprehension. Awe stricken as he 
was, he followed the light, which grew brighter as he 
advanced, and gradually led him to a large, square built 
chamber. "Here was a flagged pavement and a some- 
what lofty roof, in the groins of which was a rose, ex- 
quisitely carved in dark stone or marble." The place 
was solem.n and gloomy, and great was the surprise of 
the rustic to see in the chamber the image of a man 
sitting in a rude chair, intently reading a huge book 
by the flickering radiance of an ancient lamp suspended 
from the ceiling. An involuntary cry of astonishment 
rose to his lips, and, though anxious to retreat, he act- 
ually took a step forward, and as he did so the figure 
started bolt upright, as if amazed at his boldness. Its 
hooded head was reared apparently in angry mood, and 
it moved as though it would address the intruder. The 
peasant, with that recklessness which seems to come to 
the human heart On the approach of danger, was not 
to be deterred by threatening looks, and therefore he 
drew nearer and yet nearer to the occupant of the stone- 
like throne. But as he advanced the hooded form thrust 
out its long arm and waved an iron baton forbiddingly; 



THOUGHT LIMITATIONS. 11 

and then, as if perceiving that the intruder would pre- 
sumptuously adventure closer, it violently struck the 
lamp, and amid crashing detonating thunders out went 
the light. Enwrapped in darkness the brave peasant 
tremblingly stood, and realized that he had reached a 
boundary inviolable. He found himself in the abyss of 
midnight, reflecting, doubtless, on what had taken place, 
and slowly discerning that the effort to transcend the 
limits of inquiry had only resulted in distracting disor- 
der and paralyzing portents. 

Ever since man discovered the door that leads to the 
mysterious courts of knowledge, he has, lighted by rea- 
son, steadily pursued his way along tortuous labyrinths 
intent on possessing truth in its completeness, impatiently 
exclaiming, with the youth portrayed by Schiller, "What 
have I if I have not all?" Before him Nature, silent, 
stern, sublime, holding in its hand an inspired volume — 
the Bible, — has risen clearly and distinctly before his 
mental vision. Through the weary course of years, amid 
the thunderous roar of social and religious revolutions, 
he has drawn closer and closer to the "Giant Image," 
"dim gleaming through the hush of the large gloom," 
and has sought to penetrate its mightiest and deepest 
secrets. But ever has his impetuous search, "urged 
by the sharp fever of the wish to know," been baffled, 
and baffled when success seemed most assured. Triumph 
has quickh' changed into defeat. Evermore has a mys- 
terious hand warned back the ambitious invader of the 
Inscrutable, and mute lips have seemed to murmur, " Hith- 
erto shalt thou come, but no further"; if, however, in 
blind intrepidity he has disdained the warning, and has 
continued "to rush in where angels fear to tread," darkness 
has settled over all his knowledge, and the harmonies of 
nature and of grace have grown discordant. Many a 
mind has been beclouded, many a soul has been sad- 



12 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

dened, "the sweet serenity of life has fled," and "deep 
anguish has dug an early grave," through the failure of 
inquiry to arrest its search at the boundary line of the 
impenetrable. To this boundary the Rosicrucian tradi- 
tion points; and wise the man who recognizes its impas- 
sableness, and content with what of knowledge is attain- 
able, frets not because beyond the reach of thought the 
pathless obscure extends. 

Everywhere throughout the universe are limitations 
manifest. The fire-planets, that in their swift and mazy 
revolutions seem to sweep at pleasure through the un- 
shored sea of space, are restrained and curbed, held to 
particular orbits, from which they never deviate, and be- 
yond which they cannot circle. Oceans roll and impetu- 
ously drive their landward waves, and, dashing surgeful 
waters against nature's rugged barriers, threaten to sub- 
merge the earth. But all in vain their stormful rage and 
mad ambition. Ragged, jagged rocks intercept the law- 
less billows, and proudly disperse their strength in iri- 
descent spray; and even defenseless sands check their 
tumultuous advance, and convert their white-capped 
breakers into idle, crawling, harmless foam. Plants and 
animals are circumscribed by zones and latitudes, or are 
so conditioned by some special element, that where one 
class or order flourishes others sicken, pine and die. 
Birds for the air, and fish for the water, and both for the 
narrower sphere within these broad domains to which they 
are adapted. The bald, grave eagle, around whose iron 
talons has been bound an iron chain, excites our pity, 
because he cannot rise on mighty wing to salute the burn- 
ing splendor of the noon-tide sun. His ignoble fetters 
fatally curtail his freedom, and his straitened flight is easily 
surpassed by the ungainly efforts of the humblest fowl. The 
length of his chain determines the height of his winged 
ascent. But release him, set him free, and let his strong, 



AN AMBITIOUS FISH. 13 

swift pinions bear him far beyond the reach of man, and 
think you it will even then be possible for him to escape 
all trammels? No; though he soar to the gateway of the 
morning, he will at last reach a point impassable, and all 
his efforts to cleave a passage to a region higher than the 
sustaining air will end in sad defeat. He is, when in the 
enjoyment of his widest liberty, as truly caged in the cir- 
cumambient atmosphere as is the silver-voiced canary that 
impatiently beats against the glittering wires of its little 
prison-house. Perhaps an ambitious fish of the intellectual 
order so eloquently described by Dr. Lindsay can be im- 
agined as fretting that his existence should be bounded by 
the watery element. He can easily be pictured as com- 
plaining that his aspiring mind should be " cabined, cribbed 
and confined" within the narrow limits of sea or lake, 
when a vast universe stretches out immeasurable beyond. 
Such a member of the piscatorial family would undoubt- 
edly contend that it is unfair to hold him captive, and pre- 
vent his mingling with happier creatures who range the 
earth according, as he supposes, " to their own sweet 
will." "Why," he might inquire, "should he be deprived 
of the fair fields, the fresh flowers, and sublime scenery, 
which yield untold delight to others?" And after much 
meditation on the dark problem, we can readily conceive 
of him as deciding to escape this thralldom, and enlarge 
indefinitely his sphere of action. Sapient fish! an avenue 
of escape undoubtedly may be found, and when least ex- 
pected your hopes of emancipation be completely realized. 
For instance, an angler's hook promisingly flashes in the 
water, and if the opportunity is instantaneously improved, 
the reflective fish, after feeling a sharp sensation in his 
gill, and a rude, sudden jerk, will find himself — where? 
Where ? — why here upon the land, gasping for breath, 
and hearing from irreverent lips the exclamation, "After 
all, I have only caught a gudgeon." The fisherman is 



14 ISMS OLD AifD NEW. 

right; only a gudgeon would fall into the error of suppos- 
ing that life can be other than conditioned, or that its 
happiness and welfare can be promoted by ignoring the 
restrictions under which it has been placed. 

Like the lower orders of creation, man is hedged in, 
walled around, and circumscribed. Law touches him on 
every side, and he can neither breathe nor move, feel nor 
act, beyond the confines of its kingdom. He can neither 
see nor hear if but a step too far from the object of sight 
and the source of sound; and constantly he discovers that 
his senses are only operative within a narrow and con- 
tracted circle. Indeed, man is a veritable Robinson 
Crusoe, "lord of all he surveys," free within certain pre- 
scribed limits, and yet a captive held within this space- 
girt island which we call earth. And as he is physically, 
so is he mentally. His mind, like his engirded body, 
has a well-defined capacity and sweep, but it is horizoned 
and rigidly environed. Fancy may roam unfettered and 
create a universe where it does not find one; but reason is 
shackled, and its strongly pulsating struggles for emanci- 
pation are ever baffled and defeated. The Scriptures 
insist on the comparatively narrow range of man's intel- 
lectual powers. They declare that there are questions 
utterly dense and impermeable to his understanding, a 
region of knowledge whose frontiers he may inspect, but 
never pass. The deeper mysteries of life and grace these 
Scriptures undertake to reveal, but never to explain; to 
make them clear to faith, not comprehensible to reason. 
*'We now see through a glass darkly;" we "cannot find 
God out to perfection," and neither can we grasp the mean- 
ing of the glory that awaits us, for, as it is written, " it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be." When the Almighty 
in the book of Job is represented as answering the saintly 
patriarch out of the whirlwind. He affirms that His rela- 
tion to the universe is unexplorable by mortal man, that 



THE THEOLOGICAL ORBIT. 15 

the mystery of the seas is unfathomable, that the dwelling 
place of light is impenetrable, and the gates of the shadow 
of death impassable. He inquires of His suffering servant, 
" Knowest thou it because thou wast then born, or because 
the number of thy days is great ? " To which the answer 
might have been given in David's inspired words, " Such 
knowledge is too great for me; it is high, I cannot attain 
unto it." And thus it follows that what God said to the 
sea, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here 
shall thy proud waves be stayed," is as applicable to the 
mind; for thought, especially religious thought, is con- 
stantly checked by an invisible border-land which it can- 
not pass, and before which it must inevitably pause. 

The history of theological science fully confirms this 
doctrine. Its honored masters have continually circled 
within an orbit of ideas, from whence they have never 
been able permanently to depart. Eccentric individuals 
who have desired to rank with theologians, and who have 
sought applause by advancing radical novelties in the 
realm of faith, have generally gleamed meteor-like across 
the ecclesiastical sky, and have gone out at last in the 
darkness of unbelief, or have been constrained by an 
uncontrollable something practically to return to the 
old statements of the deep questions which have per- 
plexed man's understanding from the beginning. Nei- 
ther have they, nor others, been able to do more than 
penetrate the surface of the doctrines concerning infini- 
tudes, trinities, cosmogonies, redemptions, providences, 
eternities and immortalities on which their attention has 
been fixed. They have only disturbed the polish on the 
marble; they have never yet found a way to the real 
heart of the texture. Up to a certain point, adventurous 
inquiries have been successfully urged, but a Divine ap- 
pointment, like unto that which arrests the proud waves at 
the sandy coast-line, has uniformly driven them back from 



16 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

the borders of the infinite. An impediment, somewhat 
like to the flaming sword that guarded the entrance to 
Eden's bowers, seems to protect the heavenly arcanum 
from too near approach. Consequently theology is frag- 
mentary, incoherent, not exhaustive and complete; and 
its dogmatic statements, in comparison with the realities 
they symbolize, are as a spark to the sun, as an arc to 
a circle, and as the shrill notes of a tuneless organ to 
a chorus of angels. The science of Logic also witnesses 
to the restrictions imposed on thought. It lays down 
the laws of reasoning, and so clearly defined are all the 
processes of mental action in investigation and verification 
that this science has made but little, if any, advance 
since the days of Aristotle. What Whately, Mill or 
Hegel has added affects none of the fundamental prin- 
ciples laid down by him of Stagira; and the unprogress- 
iveness of these principles proves that our thinking is 
unchangeably conditioned. And, evidently, these limita- 
tions are on our faculties, not on the truth; we, not it, are 
bound. We are forced to think in certain channels, and 
we are all conscious of meeting the same barriers, at the 
base of which daring speculative thought may surge a 
little, but which arrest with painful certitude its advance. 
But these barriers are within, not without; they reside 
in man's constitution, not in the nature of things be- 
yond; they are due to some defect in man's understand- 
ing, not to the parsimoniousness of truth; they are deter- 
mined by his character as a creature, not decreed by the 
jealousy of a Creator. Man is finite, and the truth he 
seeks is infinite; and the finite, with all its straining, can 
never compass the infinite. As the shell that is washed 
by the ocean cannot contain within itself the immensity of 
waters, as our little earth that is refreshed by the sun can- 
not hold the vast bulk of the solar world in its bosom, 



THE athenia:?^ altak. 17 

so neither can man's measurable capacity grasp and hold 
immeasurable magnitudes. 

Perhaps in the whole domain of inquiry there is no 
truth that more fully commands the assent of reason than 
this, and yet there is none more liable to be perverted. 
Beginning with limitations which cannot be denied, it is 
not difficult to push the doctrine to the extreme of Nes- 
cience in matters of theology. Religious Pyrrhonism or 
Nihilism has more than once been the outgrowth of legiti- 
mate endeavors to measure the capabilities of thought, and 
in this age it is of the gravest moment that nothing should 
be said or done to encourage so serious a heresy. 

When Paul w^ent to Athens he found there an altar 
to the Unknown God. With that spiritual intuition which 
led so many ancient peoples to recognize above their mul- 
tiplied inferior deities One Supreme Being, these philo- 
sophical Greeks perceived that the crowds of gods which 
filled their Pantheon could not account for this wonderful 
universe, and that there must be One superior to them all 
unto whom should be rendered homage and praise. The 
apostle acknowledged their scrupulous devoutness, and 
when he preached he revealed to them the Being whom 
they ignorantly worshiped. Mark this. He did not as- 
sume that they could comprehend the Invisible Mighti- 
ness, but he did claim that they could hnov!) Him. Hence 
the discourse which follows the text, in which the spirit- 
uality, creatorship, and sovereignty of God are affirmed. 

In our times efforts are being made to rebuild this 
Athenian altar. A party has arisen on both sides of the 
Atlantic who, carrying the doctrine of thought limitations 
to an absurd extreme, maintain very earnestly that it is 
impossible to know anything of those deep and perplexing 
subjects which are involved in religion. They admit that 
there may be a Deity, a spiritual world, and a future life, 
but at the same time they assure us that we have no 
3 



18 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

means of knowing that there are, and that, being con- 
stituted as we are, we can never expect to remedy this 
ignorance. Of course we can guess, wish, and dream 
indefinitely, but all of our speculations are only like 
the deceptive mirage, unverifiable and unsatisfying. 
Theological doctrines are but the shadows of our hopes 
and fears cast on the curtains of the universe, or the 
echoes of our own desires which we have been shouting 
in our folly, and which return to plague us. Man may 
be compared to a child wandering among the mountains, 
who in its fear and agony cries aloud on " Father," and 
hears the name repeated in the distance, and then calls 
"Father, seek your son," and in return catches the as- 
suring response, "Son"; and then, with a gleam of joy 
in the heart, exclaims, in fond anticipation of deliverance, 
" Home," and backward to him comes the word, as though 
whispered by angel voices, " Home." But, after all, these 
are but echoes, and lost indeed would be the child who 
should heed them. Such, it is claimed, is man's position 
in the universe. A profound silence reigns around him, 
and he breaks it with the sound of his own voice, and 
fancies that its echo is the voice of the Invisible. Nor will 
he be persuaded of his error, but clings to it, imagining 
that he knows, when in reality he knows nothing; bab- 
bling about seeing through a glass darkly, when in fact 
he cannot see at all; talking of his inability to find out 
God unto perfection, when actually it is impossible for 
him to ascertain whether there is such a Being or not. 

This is the creed of the Agnostic, the gospel of " know- 
nothingism," as it has been recently called, whose altar 
is reared not only to the Unknown, but to the Unknow- 
able. Dr. Porter, of Yale College, in an article on Her- 
bert Spencer, quotes a few verses, which give a fair idea 
of Agnostic belief, and which also illustrate its explana- 
tion of religion as it is found among men:* 



THE AGJ^OSTICS DOCTRINE. 19 

"At the end of every road there stands a wall, 
Not built by hands, — impenetrable, bare. 
Behind it lies an unknown land. And all 
The paths men plod tend to it, and end there. 
Each man, according to his humor, paints 
On that bare wall strange landscapes, dark or bright, 
Peopled with forms of friends or forms of saints, — 
Hells of despair or Edens of delight." 

Then the poet describes how the painters call upon 
their fellows to "tremble or rejoice," as though their 
pictures were realities, and how indignant they grow when 
some "sacrilegious hand" wipes off their landscapes and 
exposes the hard, cold, impenetrable wall. He portrays 
their anger and excitement at the desecration, and repre- 
sents them as saying that it were better to have fiends 
and flames painted by fancy than this bare, blind, and 
empty obstruction. 

"And straight the old work begins again 
Of picture-painting. And men shout and call 
For response to their pleasure or pain. 
Getting back echoes from that painted wall." 

As a fit supplement to this poetic statement hear what 
Mr. Huxley has to say on man's duty and on the subjects 
which should engage his attention, and which should oc- 
cupy his time. Whether he classes himself with avowed 
agnostics or not, the sentences I quote express their opin- 
ions very faithfully. In one of his Sunday evening lect- 
ures to the people he says: "If a man asks me what the 
politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and I reply 
that I do not know, that neither I nor anyone else have 
any means of knowing, and that under these circumstances 
I decline to trouble myself about the subject at all, I do 
not think that he has any right to call me a skeptic. On 
the contrary, in replying thus I conceive that I am sim- 
ply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for 
the economy of time. So Hume's strong and subtle in- 



20 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

tellect takes up a great many problems about which we 
are naturally curious, and shows us that they are essen- 
tially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable 
of being answered, and therefore not worth the attention 
af men who have work to do in the world." Having 
quoted from Hume a passage where he recommends that 
volumes of divinity be given to the flames, as containing 
nothing but sophistry and illusion, Mr. Huxley continues: 
" Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why trouble 
ourselves about matters of which, however important they 
may be, we do know nothing and can know nothing? We 
live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and 
the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the 
little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and 
somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it. 
To do this effectually it is necessary to be fully possessed 
of only two beliefs. The first, that the order of nature 
is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is 
practically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts 
for something as the condition of the order of events." 
(Fortnightly Mevieio, February, 1869.) 

This is Agnosticism, and there are reasons for believing 
that it is multiplying converts. There is that about it 
which seems so reverent, so modest, and so humble that 
it fascinates many minds. And then it deals so sum- 
marily with perplexities, and chimes in so harmoniously 
with man's devotion to the things of earth, relieving him 
of obligation to search for religious truth and to serve 
its Infinite Author, that it seems to be the real philoso- 
phy of life, and to be worthy the adoption of the wise 
and prudent. The temptation is, therefore, great to em- 
brace it without due reflection, and to overlook the very 
grave objections which lie against its credibleness. These 
objections are derived from various sources, and deserve 
to be fairly weighed before the emptiness of Religious 



PROFESSOR TYXDALL's OPIN^TOK. 21 

Nihilism is substituted for the fullness of Christian Faith. 
A brief examination will abundantly establish their va- 
lidity, and will conclusively show that this specious Ism is 

Condemned by Science, 

Refuted by Reason, 

Contradicted by Experience, 

Rejected by Revelation, and 

Discredited by Morality. 
And, surely, the strength and significance of these various 
protests should be candidly and conscientiously estimated 
by every one who desires to commit himself only to such 
opinions as rest on firm foundations. 

The attitude of many leading scientists unquestionably 
is favorable to the assumptions of Agnosticism. This 
damaging fact I do not attemj)t to conceal. Already we 
have heard from Mr. Huxley, and in the same direction 
Professor Tyndall has written: *'The mind of man may be 
compared to a musical instrument with a certain range of 
notes, beyond which in both directions we have an infini- 
tude of silence. The phenomena of matter and force lie 
within our intellectual range, and as far as they reach we 
will at all hazards push our inquiries. But behind and 
above and around all the real mystery of this universe 
lies unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable 
of solution." But though scientists frequently indulge in 
such representations, we are not, therefore, to conclude 
that they are warranted or approved by science itself. 
They are far from being scientific. Science tells a differ- 
ent story. It knows, and otherwise it dare not report, 
that as much mystery enshrouds "the phenomena of mat- 
ter and force " as invests what lies behind them, and that 
our "intellectual range" is no more equal to the complete 
comprehension of the one than the other. The great 
preacher, P. Felix, in one of his Notre Dame Conferences 
impressively inquires, "Who has been able to penetrate 



22 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

the secret of the formation of a body, the generation of a 
single atom ? What is there I will not say at the center 
of a sun, but at the center of an atom ? Who has sounded 
to the bottom the abyss in a grain of sand ? The grain of 
sand, gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by 
science; she has turned and re-turned it; she divides it 
and subdivides it; she torments it with her experiments; 
she vexes it with her questions, to snatch from it the final 
word as to its secret constitution; she asks it, with an 
insatiable curiosity. Shall I divide thee infinitesimally ? 
Then, suspended over this abyss, science hesitates, she 
stumbles, she feels dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and in 
despair says, "I do not know." And, in like manner, who 
has fathomed the oceanic depths of mystery in a single 
drop of water ? This question I have often asked myself; 
I have sought an answer from the books of science, and 
having heard their dim responses, T have come to believe 
that there is in this familiar object, which hangs like pearls 
on grass and flower, which sparkles in the sun, and which 
sweeps in evening rains and exhales in morning dew, seas 
of _ enigmas deep enough to drown the mightiest intellects. 
Thought has sailed over it for thousands of years, but no 
coast-line has ever yet been reached, and no bottom has 
ever yet been found. We easily express its constituent 
elements, and yet we are far from realizing the terrible 
forces that are contained and that slumber in its bosom. 
Were these suddenly set free, they would devastate with 
the fury of a midnight tempest, and would startle us with 
the wild evidences of their Titanic power. As Faraday has 
shown, the energy of 800,000 charges of the Leyden bat- 
tery is lodged in a drop of water, sufficient to produce an 
effect equal to a stroke of lightning. But can a Faraday 
explain this tremendous and overwhelming wonder ? Can 
any mind find it out unto perfection? No; inquire as we 
may, we must still confess our ignorance. Oceans are 



HEAVEKLY MAGNITUDES. 23 

necessary to engulf our ships, but a drop of water seems 
all-sufficient to engulf our reason. 

But if an atom is as a trackless continent and a water- 
drop as an unnavigable sea, what shall we say to the 
majesty of the universe ? We boastingly parade our in- 
tellectual conquests over nature, and yet, if we have not 
subdued an atom, how insignificant must be our knowl- 
edge of the heavens! We have above us gleaming a 
world — the sun — containing in its mass a volume of sub- 
stance larger than that which composes the bulk of the 
united worlds in the center of whose mighty circle it spins 
and shines. Astronomers have proven that it is one mill- 
ion three hundred thousand times vaster than the globe; 
and that three hundred years would be needed to circum- 
navigate it, while three years would suffice, at the same 
rate of speed, to voyage around this petty terraqueous 
ball. Its heat, and the terrific energy of its heat, scien- 
tists have in vain tried to measure. They have never yet 
been able to convey to the mind a comprehensible idea of 
this tremendous force. The column of ice fifty-four miles 
in diameter, propelled at a rate of two hundred and ten 
thousand miles per minute, which Herschel figures would 
be needful to perceptibly diminish its intensity; or the 
comparison of Tyndall, that the heat of the sun every 
hour is equal to the combustion of nearly seven leagues 
thick of coal, distributed over an area as vast as its own 
surface, stimulates the imagination, but only astounds and 
prostrates the reason. Then beyond our solar system 
there are glowing orbs, and solitudes of unpeopled space, 
processions of nebulae, unkindled suns, and embryo stars, 
moving at different rates of velocity and in various direc- 
tions, in comparison with which the solar system is as 
the dew-drops pendent from the flower that lifts its tiny 
head on the vast ocean's verge. Sir William Herschel, in 
the eighteenth century, from the Cape of Good Hope, un- 



24 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

dertook with the aid of his gigantic telescope to count the 
stars in the Milky Way, and as the result of his investiga- 
tions arrived at a totality of more than eighteen million 
suns. Yet even this is only an inconsiderable fraction of 
the unnumbered v^orlds v^hich, bound by ties and sweet 
affinities, roll harmoniously in the ether-depths throughout 
the immensity of creation, whose fathomless tides seem 
"to flow on to no shore." Who has ever had steadiness 
of mind sufficient to follow their mazy courses, and who 
has been able to comprehend the unity which pervades 
the whole ? Light, traveling two hundred miles a sec- 
ond, takes thousands of years to reach our planet from 
some of the cresset lamps that gleam in heaven. Venus is 
27,000,000 miles from the sun; the nearest fixed star is 
20,000,000,000 miles distant from the earth; and deserts 
of creation doubtless separate such worlds remote from 
the confines of yet rem.oter systems. But who is there 
that really understands what these prodigious distances 
and spaces signify ? We represent them to the eye in 
figures, but no mind is capable of forming a just con- 
ception of their exhaustless meaning. They exceed the 
power of thought, as gravitation, about which we speak so 
glibly, baffles the scrutiny of the keenest intellect. An 
eminent French savant has well said on this point, "We 
know that bodies approach each other in the ratio of 
their masses, and in inverse ratio of the square of their 
distances; but why do they approach each other? This is 
what we do not know, and what we probably never shall 
know." ..." As to the real cause which makes 
small bodies to rush toward greater ones, and the little 
stars to revolve around the larger, it is, we repeat, a mys- 
tery that cannot be penetrated by mortals." And thus 
science itself comes to a standstill at the border-land, and 
is incompetent to explain the wonders it proclaims ; and 
shall we then for one moment suppose, when the subjects 



THE PHEN"OMENA OF N'ATURE. 25 

of inquiry are theological, that science will presume to 
say that the affirmation of mystery becomes the negation 
of knowledge ? If it should do so, it would simply invali- 
date its own teachings; for if thought-limitations in one 
direction are held to prove the certitude of incertitude, 
logically they must do so in the other. And thus, accord- 
ing to such reasoning, Nescience in religion leads by a 
logical necessity to Pyrrhonism in science. As has been 
said by M. Royer-Collard, " we cannot assign a part only 
to skepticism; as soon as skepticism once penetrates into 
the understanding, it invades it throughout." 

Professor Tyndall admits that the phenomena of matter 
and force are within our intellectual range, but denies that 
by them we can invade the intrenched secret of the uni- 
verse that lies beyond. If he means that we cannot " find 
God out unto perfection" through the operations of nature, 
we have no controversy with him; but if he means that we 
cannot by such endeavors arrive at a real, though partial, 
knowledge of the Divine existence, we modestly but ear- 
nestly dissent from his position. Newton has said, " It no 
doubt belongs to natural philosophy to inquire concerning 
God from the observation of phenomena," and there is no 
good reason for doubting the soundness of his conclusion. 
The contrary assumption is so one-sided, so destitute of 
analogy, so foreign to the judgment of mankind, creating 
so wide and so arbitrary a distinction between the domain 
of matter and of mind, that it borders on the irrational. 
Common sense argues that, as everyone admits we can 
become acquainted with the laws governing physical phe- 
nomena by the study of the phenomena themselves, there 

is no sufficient reason to doubt that we can in the same 

• 

manner arrive at certain reliable conclusions regarding the 
Divine existence and man's immortality. The laws that 
govern the various operations of nature can be known, 
though they are unseen; and though they may not be 



26 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

thoroughly understood, our information concerning them 
is looked upon as absolutely trustworthy. But • physical 
phenomena lead us back to Cause as well as to law, and 
to a Cause adequate to accomplish what is perceived; and 
as in the phenomena mind is apparent, we may with the 
same degree of certainty believe that it is in the Cause as 
we believe, on precisely the same evidence, that law is, and 
that it answers to such or such a formula. If the reason- 
ing in the one case is sound it is in the other, and if it is 
not in either, then we are incapable of verifying anything. 
On the one side, by the knowledge of phenomena we rise 
to the knowledge of law; on the other, by the same means 
we rise to the knowledge of Cause, and to a Cause which, 
comprehending in itself potentially the complex and prac- 
tically measureless wonders of creation, we cannot but call 
God. But if it is said that such a Being cannot be clearly 
apprehended or distinctly defined, common sense replies 
that the limitations of mind account for this comj^arative 
failure, but that the inability is paralleled by the diffi- 
culty experienced in understanding fully the precise char- 
acter of a law, say such as gravitation, and of formulating 
it intelligibly. The dew-drop that faithfully reflects the 
sun, gives but a meager idea of its majesty. But in addi- 
tion to this, common sense protests against the exclusive 
attention to the physical and the disregard for the spiritual 
which Professors Tyndall and Huxley manifest. It insists 
that the phenomena of soul are as worthy of consideration 
as those of matter. Mind is an essential part of the uni- 
verse, and no system can be sound which ignores it. If it 
is scrutinized and catechized, it responds in no doubtful 
terms to the reality of God and the immortality of man. 
On this internal testimony an unanswerable argument has 
frequently been reared. The universal consciousness is 
against Agnosticism, and the only question in debate is 
whether its testimony is reliable. Why should it be 



THE PROTEST OF REASON. 27 

thought otherwise ? If we can with safety build on the 
physical, why not on the psychical ? They are parts of the 
same system of things. For all we know, the latter may 
even be more trustworthy than the former, and unques- 
tionably it challenges as much attention. But if it is not 
to be treated as a faithful witness when it testifies to 
God's existence and to man's immortality, what confidence 
can be placed in any of its processes, without which we 
would be unable to ascertain anything, conceive or sub- 
stantiate anything, either physical or spiritual ? It is a 
necessity of science, as well as of religion, that the trust- 
worthiness of mind be admitted. If it is not, then every- 
thing is uncertain ; if it is, then its testimony to the super- 
sensuous, the superhuman and divine is conclusive and 
unimpeachable. 

We have thus shown that science, fairly interrogated, 
condemns the ism we are reviewing, and we are now pre- 
pared to weigh what reason has to suggest in the same 
direction. The Agnostic is essentially metaphysical. His 
stronghold is in cloudland, and his logical defenses are ab- 
stract, involved, subtle and tortuous. He speaks the lan- 
guage of Sir William Hamilton's Lectures, of Dean Han- 
sel's Limits of Religious Thoughts, and of Herbert 
Spencer's voluminous revelations regarding the Unknow- 
able. To him the fundamental conceptions of theology 
are unthinkable and self-destructive, and he triumphantly 
asks, "How can Infinite Power be able to do all things, 
and Infinite Goodness be unable to do evil ? How can 
Infinite Justice exact the utmost penalty for every sin, 
and Infinite Mercy pardon the sinner ? How can Infinite 
Wisdom know all things, and Infinite Freedom be at lib- 
erty to do or to forbear? How is the existence of evil 
compatible with that of an Infinitely Perfect Being? For 
if He wills it. He is not infinitely good; and if He wills 
it not. His will is thwarted and His sphere of action lim- 



28 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

ited." He further insists that the Infinite or the Abso- 
lute is inconceivable: "There is contradiction in suppos- 
ing such an object to exist, either alone or with others, 
and in supposing it not to exist; in conceiving it as one 
and as many, as personal and as impersonal, as active and 
as inactive, as the sum of all existence and as a part only 
of that sum," and, consequently, we find him sententiously 
affirming with Herbert Spencer that this is the " deepest, 
widest, and most certain of all facts, that the Power the 
universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable." 

Reason is not satisfied with these representations, and 
is far from consenting to the conclusion. Following in 
substance Mr. Mill's line of argument, it claims that while 
we may not have an adequate conception of the Infinite, 
we may be able to form a very real conception, and it 
illustrates this distinction by a passage from Mr. Mill's 
Examination of Sir W. Ilandlton^ s Philosopliy^ in which 
he says, "Let us try the doctrine on a complex whole, 
short of infinite, such as the number 695,788. Sir W. H. 
would not, I suppose, maintain that this number is incon- 
ceivable. How long does he think it would take to go 
over every separate unit of this whole, so as to obtain a 
perfect knowledge of that exact sum, as different from 
all others, greater or less? Would he say that we can 
have no conception of the sum till this process is gone 
through ? We could not, indeed, have an adequate con- 
ception. Accordingly, we never have an adequate concep- 
tion of any real thing. But we have a real conception, if 
we can conceive it by any of its attributes which are suffi- 
cient to distinguish it from all other things. ... If, then, 
we can obtain a real conception of a finite whole, without 
going through all its component parts, why deny us the 
conception of an infinite whole because to go through 
them all is impossible ? . . . Between a conception which, 
though inadequate, is real as far as it goes, and the 



KNOWING THE INFINITE. 29 

impossibility of any conception, there is a wide differ- 
ence." Moreover, reason discerns in the doctrine of the 
Unknowable a grave inconsistency. Having expressly 
denied that the Infinite can be a subject of thought, it 
goes to work to show why it is unthinkable, and in doing 
so it quietly assumes certain things to be true of it which, 
according to its principal proposition, it has no possible 
means of verifying. If the Infinite is unknowable, how 
can the Agnostic prove that this or that idea is inhar- 
monious with it ? As it is, he proceeds on the supposition 
that he knows it for the purpose of obtaining the evidence 
that it is unknowable. 

Mr. Mill has clearly brought out the fact that the Ag- 
nostic conjures up "a conception of something Svhich 
possesses infinitely all conflicting attributes," and be- 
cause this cannot be done without contradiction, "he 
would have us believe that there is contradiction in the 
idea of Infinite Goodness or Infinite Wisdom," on which 
piece of metaphysical insincerity Mr. Mill comments in 
these terms: "Instead of 'the Infinite' substitute an 'In- 
finitely Good Being,' and the argument reads thus: If 
there is anything which an infinitely good Being cannot 
become, if He cannot become bad, there is a limitation, 
and the goodness cannot be infinite. If there is anything 
which He is, namely, good. He is excluded from being any 
other thing, as from being wise or powerful." Having 
pointed out these absurdities he declares that these con- 
tradictions are not involved in the notion of the Infinite, 
"but lie in the definitions," definitions which have been 
expressly manufactured for the sole purpose of proving 
that nothing can be known of the Supreme Ruler of the 
universe. But after all that has been done in this direc- 
tion success has not followed, for, as Professor Birks has 
exhaustively shown in his admirable treatise on Physical 
Fatalism, a work to which I gladly acknowledge my 



30 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

indebtedness, the very terms employed to express the un- 
knowableness of the unknown convey an important and 
large amount of knowledge. Thus from the various 
ideas and positions of its advocates, already quoted, we 
learn that God is absolute not derived, infinite not 
finite, manifest in nature not hidden, distinct from His 
works not identified with them, omnipotent not impo- 
tent, and One not manifold. This is a good deal of in- 
formation for a theory, which sets out to demonstrate 
that the Almighty is absolutely inscrutable, to afford hu- 
manity struggling to obtain light. We really are in- 
debted. By these concessions, involved in the mazy and 
hazy statements of the Agnostic, reason jDcrceives that his 
doctrine is untenable, and that he is confirming, though 
unwillingly, the positive declaration of Paul : " For the 
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
made, even His eternal power and Godhead." 

But if reason refutes, experience contradicts Agnosti- 
•cism. When its supporters assert that nothing spiritual 
can be known, they are merely judging mankind by them- 
selves. Because they themselves are in the gulf of night, 
they conclude that everybody is in the same unhappy con- 
dition. But if a few persons living inland should contend 
that the ocean does not exist because they have not seen 
it, would we be willing to allow that it is unseeable, espe- 
cially when thousands testify that their eyes have rested 
on its grandeur? No; we would answer that the pri- 
vation of some cannot be weighed against the positive 
observation of others. Though a hundred persons should 
deny that President Lincoln was assassinated because they 
were not present to witness the tragical event, the testi- 
mony of half a dozen who were on the spot would be 
sufficient to prove its occurrence. Well, all the Agnostics 
in the world cannot invalidate the experience of a few 



THE EVIDEKCE OF EXPERIENCE. 31 

Christians. All they can say is that they do not know, 
and that is worthless by the side of the " I do know " 
of Christ's disciples. His followers have communed with 
God, have conversed with him. They have realized the 
grandeur of responsibility, the awfulness of sin, and the 
sweetness of pardon, and they can therefore speak with 
authority. If it shall be said that they are self-deceived, 
then we are modestly asked to believe that all the world 
is deluded, with the exception of a few individuals who 
are evidently infatuated with the charms of ignorance. 
But is this reasonable ? Why may not the few be 
deceived by their prejudices instead of the many be duped 
by their fancies? We do not deny that what we have 
felt may be but as the shadows described in Plato's He- 
puhlic^ which were seen by the captives in the subter- 
ranean cave when their back was turned toward the light, 
but shadows are ever cast by substantial objects, and 
proclaim reality. The reflection of the mountains in the 
water attests their existence and their vastness, and 
thus our experiences, though but as faint images of 
the Infinite, of eternity, of immortality, witness to sub- 
lime and imperishable correspondences. But there is 
another answer to this supposition. As has been elab- 
orately stated by a New England author, religious truth 
is not above experiment. If you would know for your- 
self whether there is a God, or whether He can be com- 
muned with, and whether He can come into the soul, 
comply with the conditions revealed in the Bible, and 
you shall have the evidence in yourselves. Put away 
wrong doing, call upon God's name, beseech Him to 
verify His own being and your own immortality, sin- 
cerely desire to discover the truth, and I have no doubt 
but that the answ^er wall be such that you and Agnos- 
ticism will part company forever. Dr. Walker, in the 
Observer, eloquently points out the grounds of this duty, 



32 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

and enforces it in a manner so masterly that I cannot re- 
frain from quoting his words. He says: 

"Man finds himself with a religious nature, the spon- 
taneous and normal exercise of which is reverence, adora- 
tion, obedience to a Power above himself. Here are sub- 
jective conditions, which imply objective truths corre- 
sponding. As is the case with all other parts of his 
nature, these are not purposeless. They prompt to the 
investigation of that which they demand and to which 
they are related, — truths about God, in the universe of 
mind and of matter, discovered, certified, reduced to sys- 
tem, rendered into theology. These truths are those of 
the Divine personality, His character. His dealings espe- 
cially with man, endowed with a nature which craves to 
know and honor Him. Why should man refuse to seek 
Him here as well as elsewhere ? Is it the really scientific 
spirit which dictates such a course? Is it not mere ca- 
price not only to decline investigation of these phe- 
nomena objective to the religious nature, and demanded 
by it, but to insist beforehand that such investigation, if 
made, is not and cannot be scientific? Such course, in 
reference to anything but religious truth, would not for 
an instant be tolerated. But here we are met by the 
objection of mystery. What is its pertinence? It is 
never offered in connection with other sciences. They all 
involve mystery, rest upon it, and are surrounded by it. 
What is matter ? What is life ? What is mind ? What 
is spirit? 'Omnia exeunt in mysteriiun.'^ No one, on the 
score of mystery, declines scientific investigation, or de- 
nies its possibility in any of these spheres of knowledge. 
It is only as men see or fear that they will encounter 
God in His claims, that such objections are offered. They 
do not like to retain God in their knowledge, and thus 
their effort is to make out that He cannot be known." 

The allusion to the Bible in the foregoing paragraph 



THE BIBLE. 33 

leads us naturally to our next position. Revelation re- 
jects in toto the senseless theory of religious Nihilism. 
Suppose that we concede to the Agnostic that the limita- 
tions of thought are such that it is impossible for man to 
arrive at the knowledge of God or of his own destiny, 
does that preclude the possibility of its coming to him 
in some other way ? May not that which is undiscoverable 
be revealed? Or, in other words, if man's capacity is as 
narrow and weak as Agnosticism claims, does it prove the 
unattainableness of religious knowledge, or does it mere- 
ly indicate that an inspired Revelation is indispensable? 
Certainly it can never establish the former as long as the 
latter is possible. And that it is possible the belief of 
many millions that it is actual abundantly sustains. 
Everywhere w^e hear of sacred books, attributed to divine 
interposition, and whether only one is true, or all are alike 
false, they express the common conviction that the Al- 
mighty can communicate with His creatures. The ideas 
which fill mind and heart regarding the Supreme, the na- 
ture of obligation, and the eternity of the soul, may have 
been derived from this source by immediate and personal 
illumination, or by the inspired enlightenment of chosen 
men. We know, however, that the ideas are here; how 
they came may be open to debate, but that they have not 
been received from God is beyond the power of man to 
]irove. Whether any existing revelation is in reality of 
l^ivinc origin cannot be discussed here, nor is it needful, 
for our present aim is simply to show that, though man's 
resources be inadequate to meet his spiritual necessities, 
it cannot with reason be affirmed that religious knowledge 
is beyond his reach when it may be received from above. 
Agnosticism at the worst only establishes the necessity 
for a heavenly revelation, and the more fully it makes 
manifest our helplessness the more clearly it brings out 
the probability that it has been conferred. For if we 
3 



34 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

are thus incapable, and if we feel so deep a yearning for 
light — and that we do no one can deny — that we are 
led to seek it by a native impulse, our highest welfare 
must be interwoven with it, and just in proportion as 
this is true must the probability be increased that the 
Being who has provided so liberally for all our other 
wants has not forgotten to bestow this last and indis- 
pensable boon. 

Herbert Spencer, in his Philosophy^ expresses the opin- 
ion " that the knowledge within our reach is the only 
knowledge that can be of service to us"; and it seems to 
me the right word to say in this connection, for in judg- 
ing the claims of any sacred book we should examine 
whether its teachings are especially available for the moral 
exigencies of life, or whether they are fitted merely to 
gratify a prurient curiosity. The ship-master does not 
need accurate views regarding the origin or formation of 
the universe to safely navigate a vessel across stormy seas. 
Professional practicalities are of more importance to him. 
If he knows the tides, their strength and their seasons; if 
he is instructed in the use of the compass, its deflections 
and variations; if he understands taking the sun, and even 
how to steer without it, and if he is familiar with the capa- 
bilities of his ship, his ignorance of the true cosmogony 
would not disqualify him for command. The mason 
builds without knowing the plan of the architect, the sol- 
dier fights without inquiring into the designs of the gen- 
eral, the laborer in the factory pursues his task on the 
ninth part of a pin, and never pauses to investigate his 
brothers' work, or to demand from his employer a detailed 
account of the contracts which he is fulfilling. We all 
thus work on . partial knowledge, and work efficiently. 
Thorough and exhaustive comprehension of everything 
connected with our daily callings none of us have, and 
neither is it necessary to success. It seems, then, reason- 



SUFFICIENT LIGHT. 35 

able to infer that a Revelation from God would deal more 
directly with the moral and sjDiritual practicalities than in 
elaborate expositions of deep truths, which, however glo- 
rious in themselves, would be comparatively of secondary 
value in their bearing upon life. And this is precisely the 
principle v/hich determines the character of the sacred 
Scriptures. While they announce abysmal mysteries, they 
leave them mysteries; and partly, perhaps, because the 
intellect could not grasp their clearest elucidation now, 
and partly because another class of truths is of more im- 
mediate service, they devote a large portion of their con- 
tents to such matters as lead to human regeneration, 
elevation and salvation. Upon such points they are ade- 
quate and complete. We, therefore, have in these inspired 
writings all the knowledge necessary both for life and 
godliness. We have enough both for faith and practice, 
and unless we are prepared to ignore the probabilities 
which so strongly point to the reasonableness of a super- 
natural revelation, we need not inhabit tombs nor grope 
in darkness, and despairingly cry that we know not our 
duty either to God or man. Here it is made manifest, 
and made manifest in such a way that it is unobscured 
and unaffected by the unexplorable truths with which it 
is associated. Though clouds and darkness still enshroud 
God's throne, sufficient light has fallen on our path to 
make clear the road to heaven. There is no position we 
occupy, no relationship we sustain, no serious issue we 
have to meet, concerning which we may not, if we will, 
obtain the fullest information; neither is there any honest 
doubt, springing from a troubled conscience, that has not 
its antidote in the affluent provisions of Divine grace. If 
you would know how to approach and honor your Crea- 
tor; if you would realize the claims of Christ upon your 
faith and love; if you would learn how to fulfill your obli- 
gations as parent, child, citizen, or friend, and if you 



36 ISMS OLD AI^D NEW. 

would understand how to live and die triumphantly, you 
have but to consult the sacred volume, whose pages glow 
with simplest wisdom and with safest counsels. The 
Bible may be reticent where you would be pleased to 
have it voluble, it may be tongueless where you would 
have it' eloquent, and obscure where you would have it 
clear; but though it may conceal many things from your 
too curious eyes, and refuse to lay bare either the secrets 
of a past or of a future eternity, what reason have you for 
complaint if it has made manifest the range and scope of 
present duty? This much at least it has done; and for 
the way in which you deal with the Heaven-given light — 
call it twilight if you will — which it has shed upon your 
path, will you have to render an account to God, not for 
the darkness which it has left undisturbed, and which all 
your intellectual power never can dispel. 

Finally, morality discredits Agnosticism; for its inter- 
ests are jeopardized by a doctrine that condemns mankind 
to total ignorance on matters of individual and social 
obligation, and forbids them to recognize a moral gov- 
ernor of the world. On this point Mr. Mill, in the work 
already alluded to, testifies, and certainly he is no par- 
tial witness: "My opinion of this doctrine (namely, that 
nothing can be known or understood of moral attributes 
in a Supreme Being), in whatever way presented, is that 
it is simply the most morally pernicious doctrine now 
current, and that the question it involves is, beyond all 
others which now engage speculative minds, the decisive 
one between good and evil for the Christian world." This 
can easily be demonstrated by the effect of this Ism on 
society. When it declares religious knowledge to be 
unattainable, it, of course, anticipates the formation of 
communities where it will be entirely ignored. Absolute 
secularism is already recommended, and the extract quoted 
from Mr, Huxley places him on the side of those who 



SECULARISM. 37 

deem it desirable. He would have us care for our fellow- 
beings, would have us try to alleviate their sorrows, and 
diminish their ignorance. But it is legitimate to ask by 
what motives shall philanthropy be sustained and inspired 
when Agnosticism triumphs ? It will then be impossible to 
prove that it is even a duty, and will be beyond the ability 
of man to show that it would not, on the whole, be better 
just to let the unfortunate classes perish as rapidly as pos- 
sible. Carried to its logical consequences, this theory does 
not even offer any encouragement to education; for why, 
if there is no divine law imposing such obligation on us, 
should we trouble ourselves about others at all, and why 
lavish so much care on those who cannot make much prog- 
ress in this life, and who can never reap any benefit from 
it in a life to come ? Proposals to organize society on a 
Godless basis have always been looked on with suspicion, 
and indeed every effort in that direction has been fraught 
with evil. It has been proven, where the attempt has been 
made, that it is impossible to foster reverence for law, to 
cultivate a due sense of responsibility, to conserve safety, 
and property, and to promote purity and peace, apart from 
the recognition of the Almighty, His supremacy, and 
man's immortality. Many infidels have recognized this, 
and among them one whom we would least suspect of 
entertaining such sentiments. Thomas Paine has left on 
record his conviction that stable and wholesome govern- 
ment must rest on Divine truth. When, in his book enti- 
tled Common Sense, he is answering those who expected 
the speedy destruction of order in these States because 
monarchy was overthrown, he says: "Let a day be sol- 
emnly set apart for proclaiming the charter ; let it be 
brought forth, placed on the Divine law, the Word of 
God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world 
may know that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in 
America the Law is king." [P. 47.] That is, human 



38 ISMS OLD AKD N^EW. 

law must rest on the Divine for it to be clothed with 
authority and secure to the citizen the blessings of good 
government. But this foundation Agnosticism sweeps 
away, and we therefore feel warranted in concluding that 
it must be radically defective and undeserving of confi- 
dence. And here ends my argument. 

Man's mind is limited, but it is not powerless; it has 
its zenith and its nadir, but its periphery is neither 
meager nor contracted; it is circumscribed in its range, 
but it is neither wingless nor footless. It may not be 
able to circumnavigate infinity, nor "gaze on creation's 
last boundary stone," but it can sail on its seas and 
know that its floods stretch limitless around. It may not 
be able to fathom the abyss of mystery that there is in an 
atom, nor lay bare the secret hidden in the humblest 
seed; but it can measure them both, and know in part, if 
not altogether. With becoming modesty may it acknowl- 
edge its inability to comprehend the Author of its being, 
or to find out His plans and purposes to perfection; but 
though it confess that it cannot do everything, it would 
be absurd to assume that it cannot do anything. It can 
know God, and learn of God, though it has no terms by 
which to explain Him; it can think of Him as Absolute, as 
Infinite, as Personal, while it may never in this life be able 
to fathom the full meaning of these sublime ideas. At 
present the mind has sufficient capacity to know the Cre- 
ator, that He is, what — in part at least — He is, what He 
commands and what He reveals. Sufficient for present 
duties, present hopes, whether for time or eternity, can be 
acquired. And happy the man who improves the light he 
has. By and by, in the world to come, the veil on the 
mind shall be rent, the channels of thought be widened 
and deepened, and the soul's pinions be immeasurably 
strengthened, and then shall man comprehend the height, 



dryden's gratitude. 39 

depth and breadth of that which here and now passeth 
understanding. 

" O gracious God ! how well dost Thou provide 
For erring judgments an unerring guide! 
Th}^ tliroue is darkness in the abyss of night, 
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. 
Oh, teach me to believe Thee thus concealed, 
And search no further than Thyself revealed; 
But her alone for my director take 
Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake ! 
My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires ; 
My manhood, long misled by wandering fires. 
Followed fiilse lights, and when their glimpse was gone 
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. 
Such was I, such by nature still I am; 
Be Thine the glory and be mine the shame! 
Good life be now my task ; my doubts are done." 



ATHEISM. 

*' 111 the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. i, 1. 

" Heaven's unnumbered host, 
Though muhiplied by myriads, and arrayed 
In that glory of sublimest thought, 
Is but an atom in the balance weighed 
Against Thy greatness — is a cypher brought 
Against infinity! 

I mn^ O God, and surely Thou must be ! 
Thou art ! — directing, guiding all, Thou art ! 
Direct my understanding, then, to Thee; 
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart." 

Russiaji Ode, hy Derzhcwen. 

THE way-worn traveler will gladly drink from the cool, 
clear, sparkling torrent that breaks from lofty and sol- 
itary rocky fastnesses, and rolls tumultuously over somber 
precipice and along jagged channel to the dusty plains, 
though its source may be hidden from his curioiis eyes, 
and forever remain inaccessible to his adventurous feet; 
and truth's mountain-stream should ever be as welcome to 
earth's weary thinkers, however hidden its springs may be 
in heights unapproachable, and in depths unfathomable. 

If venerable tradition, chronicled by the Koran, re- 
peated by Stanley, and rehearsed by Clodd, is to be 
credited, thus was truth, — the grandest, mightiest, and 
most mysterious, — welcomed by Him who is honored by 
Moslem, Jew and Christian as the Father of the Faithful. 
Born in Ur of the Chaldees, on the verge of the vast 
Assyrian plains, which for ages had been the seat of idol- 
atrous sun-worship, Abraham turned from a system, cus- 
tom-sanctioned and convention-hallowed, to embrace a 

40 



AN ABRAHAMIC LEGKXl) 41 

simpler and a purer faith. The mythical story of his con- 
version is not without beauty and instructiveness. It 
represents Terah, his father, as a maker of wooden idols; 
and shows how the son's antagonism to the corruption of 
religion, which the business symbolized, developed and 
culminated. Being left one day in charge of the stock 
in trade, Abraham was profoundly impressed at the folly 
and superstition of a woman, who devoutly brought food 
to satisfy the hunger of things which, though they had 
mouths, could not eat, and which were as unable to appre- 
ciate gifts as they were to appropriate them. But his in- 
dignation grew fiercer, and his views of duty clearer, when 
an aged man entered his tent and desired to purchase of 
his wares. 

"How old art thou?" 

'' Threescore years." 

*'What, threescore years!" answered Abraham, "and 
thou wouldst worship a thing that my father's slaves made 
in a few hours ? Strange that a man of sixty should bow 
his gray head to a creature such as that." 

Unable longer to restrain his scorn, and reason asserting 
its sovereignty over conflicting doubts, after the departure 
of his would-be customer he broke all the idols to pieces 
except one. The largest one he spared, and placed in its 
hands the hammer which had served him in his icono- 
clasm. When Terah returned he was filled with horror and 
consternation at the work of destruction which he beheld, 
and angrily demanded the name of the irreverent wretch 
who had dared to raise his impious arm against the gods. 

"Why," quietly replied the then youthful patriarch, 
"during thine absence a woman brought them food, and 
the younger and smaller ones immediately began to eat. 
The older and stronger god, enraged at their unmannerly 
boldness, took the hammer which you see in his hands, and 
crushed them all before him." 



42 ISMS OLD AI^D NEWo 

"Dost thou deride thine aged father?" cried Terah. 
" Do I not know that they can neither move nor eat ? " 

"And yet thou worshipest them," exclaimed Abraham; 
"and thou wouldst have me worship them as well." 

This rebuke was too much for the outraged parent, and 
consequently, according to the legend, he sent the way- 
ward youth to the king for admonition and correction. 
When Nimrod heard the account of his infidelity and 
impiety, instead of condemning him hastily and harshly 
he sought to win him to some form of faith. 

"If thou canst not adore the idols fashioned by thy 
father," said the accommodating monarch, "then pray to 
fire." 

"Why not to water, which will quench the fire?" 

"Be it so ; pray to water." 

"But why not to the clouds which hold the water?" 

"Well, then, pray to the clouds." 

" Why not to the winds, which drive the clouds before 
them?" 

"Certainly, please yourself; pray to the winds." 

"Be not angry, O king! " finally replied Abraham. "I 
cannot pray to the fire, or the water, or the clouds, or the 
winds, but to the Creator who made them: Him only will 
I worship." Neither would he be persuaded to adore the 
sun, moon and stars, for he discerned that they were not 
stationary, and he said, as he contemplated the heavens, 
"I like not things that set; these glittering orbs are not 
gods, as they are subject to law: I will worship Him only 
whose law they obey." 

Science is the modern Terah. In these days it is ener- 
getically reviving idol-making, a trade which by this time 
ought to be hopelessly insolvent. The chief workmen who 
seem to be interested in this enterprise are Comte, Haeckel, 
Darwin, Vogt, Huxley and Spencer, and the gods they 
have thus far manufactured are variously called "Proto- 



THE NEW IDOLATRY. 43 

plasm," "Evolution," "Primitive Fire-Mist," "Promise 
and Potency Theory," and " Creation by Law Hypothesis." 
In these thought-idols a thriving business is being driven, 
and, as in the case of the foolish woman and the venerable 
man in the Abrahamic legend, many souls are substitut- 
ing them in the place of the one ever-living and true God. 
They who have shaped these little mechanical deities, and 
who expose them to public view, do not assert that there 
may not be above them or behind them Something or 
Somebody to the mind unknown and unknowable, but 
they do assume that they are all-sufficient to account for 
the origin and order of the universe, without invoking the 
interposition of any hyperphysical or supernatural agen- 
cies or Agent. It is evident that the drift of such specu- 
lations is in the direction of Atheism; for when every 
reference to the Almighty is sneered at as unscientific, 
when He is practically ruled out of His own creation, and 
when second causes are invested with His attributes and 
credited with His work, the denial of His existence is 
logically demanded and cannot be long postponed. A 
superfluous Deity is the next thing to an imaginary Deity; 
to deprive Him of usefulness is to rob Him of being; to 
say that He does not is substantially to say that He is 
not. This is just the impression the new Terah is mak- 
ing on society, and the hammer of Abraham is needed 
to destroy the false gods that hide from the creature the 
reality and nearness of the Creator. Multiplied voices, 
like his, are demanded to denounce the fetich-worship 
developing from modern thought, and to point out the 
absurdity of scientific Nimrods reaffirming what Descartes 
has long since disproved, that dynamical force inheres 
in matter, or that law, which at the best is only a formula, 
can of itself enact itself, and from itself evolve a universe. 
The advocates of undisguised and absolute Atheism, 
and the idol-makers who sympathize with them, are more or 



44 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

less agreed in maintaining certain propositions on the truth 
or falseness of which rests the decision of the grave ques- 
tion in debate. If the propositions referred to cannot be 
sustained, Atheism is without even the shadow of a foun- 
dation; if they can, then to say the least the cause of 
theism is seriously compromised, if not imperiled. It is 
assumed: 

First, That the idea of God is explicable without 
God. 

Second, That the origin of nature is comprehensible 
without God. 

Third, That the existence of religion is possible with- 
out God. 

Fourth, That the elevation of humanity is practicable 
without God. 

These propositions, in my honest judgment, are unten- 
able; most sincerely I condemn them, and confidently be- 
lieve that their rejection can be justified. 

Evolution, as taught by its greatest philosopher, Her- 
bert Spencer, is regarded as adequate to account for intel- 
lectual and social advancement, as well as for physical de- 
velopment. Everything, it is claimed, that we think or 
feel, as well as everything we see or touch, has been 
evolved from lower and simpler forms or states. And 
thus, it is argued, the idea of God originated, and has 
slowly passed through many intermediate stages of growth 
toward grace and beauty. It is assumed that fetich- 
worship prevailed at the beginning; that this was subse- 
quently refined into polytheism; and that this in its turn 
gradually gave way to theism; and that since the triumph 
of monotheism the character of the ideal, exalted to 
supreme sovereignty, has unceasingly improved and broad- 
ened. Primary and necessary belief in God's existence is 
denied, a primeval and supernatural attestation of this be- 
lief is discredited, and its beginnings are traced to human 



THE EVOLUTION OF DEITY. 45 

fear mingled with superstition. This notion runs through 
the poem of Lucretius; it is countenanced by Hume; it 
is expressed by Dupuis in the words "the gods are the 
children of men," and it is formulated and maintained by 
Comte. 

Of course that which had so questionable an origin, in 
the advancing light of science cannot hope to maintain 
its authority. The luminous meteor, whose radiance brol-^ 
through the night of ignorance, must inevitably be eclipsed 
by the sun of knowledge. As the idea of God, according 
to this theory, was first invented, or conjured up, to explain 
the universe, just in proportion as that can be accounted 
for, apart from Him, must confidence in His existence 
be diminished. And thus the natural bourne of Evolution 
is Atheism; and no God, the ultimate faith, or no-faith, 
of the world. 

It is not to be denied that a color of truth tints this 
mass of assumption, but the color is exceedingly faint. 
We admit that the concejDtion of Deity has grown with 
the elevation and enlightenment of mankind. That it 
has been freed from blemishes, incongruities, and contra- 
dictions, no one can doubt. The advent and ministry of 
Christ contributed toward this result; and the thorough 
comprehension of His teachings has led to the glorious 
views of God's fatherhood which prevail to-day. Whether 
they are susceptible of imjDrovement, I know not. Prob- 
ably they are. Most likely, as we know more of Christ's 
message, more of nature, more of self, we shall also 
know more of God. All this may be acknowledged glad- 
ly; all this may be true, and undoubtedly is, and yet the 
atheistic theory, with which it is deftly woven, be abso- 
lutely false. 

The idea of God is inexplicable without God; the 
shadow that falls everywhere, as has frequently been 
pointed out, is meaningless without something to which it 



46 ISMS OLD Ai^TD NEW. 

corresponds. Mr. Bradlaugh says, " children are born 
atheists"; but he overlooks what Lichtenberg declares: 
"when the mind rises, it throws the body upon its knees." 
As soon as consciousness dawns under natural conditions, 
an invisible being seems instinctively to be recognized. 
The child does not argue itself out of atheism into theism, 
for " it is after the heart knows Him that the reason also 
seeks Him." Cicero long ago deliberately declared that 
"there is no people so wild and savage as not to have 
believed in a God, even if they have been unacquainted 
with His nature" ; Plutarch, in a passage familiar to every- 
one, expressed the same conviction, and it has been echoed 
by many authorities, both ancient and modern ; and in an- 
swer to those, who claim to have found exceptions to this 
rule in recent times, writers such as Amberley, who is far 
from sympathizing with Christianity, testifies: " So slender 
is the evidence of the presence of a people without some 
theological conception, that it may be doubted whether 
the travelers who have reported such facts have not been 
misled, either by inability to comprehend the language, 
or unfamiliarity with the order of thought of those with 
whom they conversed." The universality of the idea 
evidently cannot be satisfactorily refuted, and if it is 
established it proves that it is intuitive, and its intuitive- 
ness proves that it is the counterpart of reality; just as 
the reflection of a face in the water is sufficient evidence 
that the face itself is not an illusion. If it is interwoven 
with the mind, if it is part of the soul's original furniture, 
it is folly to talk of its having been evolved, and equal 
folly to doubt that it is God's own appointed witness to 
the truth of His existence. 

It is also worthy of consideration in this connection 
that the alleged progress of thought from many gods to 
one rests on no reliable foundation. Rather are there 
reasons for believing that at an early period there was a 



ANTIQUITY OF MONOTHEISM. 47 

widespread departure from the worship of one God to the 
worship of many. Theism seems to have preceded poly- 
theism, and polytheism in its turn to have yielded to the- 
ism. From truth to error, and back again, and forever, to 
the truth, describes the historical stages of this mental 
process. As Naville, in his celebrated Discourses, says: 
"The idea of one God is primitive and fundamental; 
polytheism is derived. A forgotten monotheism slumbers 
under the multiform worship. It is the secret stock from 
which the latter grew; but the exuberant offspring con- 
sumed the whole strength of the parent tree." 

Max Mtlller, in his Essays on the Veda, the venerable 
and most sacred book of India, observes "that after nam- 
ing the several powers of nature, and ^vorshiping them as 
gods, the ancient Hindu found that there was yet another 
power within him and around him for which he had no 
name. This he termed, in the first instance, 'Brahman,' 
force, will, wish. But when Brahman, too, had become a 
person, he called the mysterious power 'Atman,' originally 
meaning breath, or spirit; subsequently self." And in The 
Chips from a German W^orhshop\\Q adds: "If there is 
one thing which a comparative study of religion places in 
the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every 
religion is exposed. . . . Whenever we can trace back a 
religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many 
blemishes that affected it in its later stages." Dr. Legge, 
in his valuable treatise on the lieligions of China, fully 
corroborates this opinion; for he maintains against Pro- 
fessor Tide's insinuation that fetichism was the earliest 
faith of the empire, the more tenable view that it was a 
theism. This he makes good, not merely by an exhaustive 
analysis of the primitive name, Ti, applied to the Supreme, 
but by quotations from the statutes of the Ming Dynasty, 
such as the following: "It is your office, O spirits, — infe- 
rior agencies, — to superintend the clouds and the rain^ 



48 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

and to raise and send abroad the winds, as ministers assist- 
ing Shang Ti," who is also called "the great worker and 
transformer." Principal Dawson also, when describing 
Fossil Men, testifies that the creed of Stadacona, the 
ancient Quebec, "There is one God," was held, with 
various modifications, by all the American tribes. "The 
Great Spirit might be the Great Manitou, or Oghee-ma of 
the Algonquins; Okee or Omaha of the Mandans; or 
approaching more nearly to the familiar Aryan Theos and 
Deus, he might be the Teo of the Mexicans; but in every 
case there w^as a great Spirit, though there might be mul- 
titudes of inferior deities." The same thing has been 
observed by careful students of the Greek and Roman 
mythologies. Over and above their lesser and rival gods 
some Supreme Jove is discerned, governing and ruling, as 
in the hymn which the ancient stoic Cleanthes breathes to 
Zeus, the universal Spirit. And what is even of more 
weight, scholars have proven that the name of God in 
various ancient languages can be traced to a common root, 
pointing to a primitive belief in His unity. According to 
Dr. Fairbairn, "the Sanskrit Dyaus, the Greek Zeus, the 
•Latin Ju in Jupiter, the Gothic Tins, the Anglo-Saxon 
Tiu, the Scandinavian Tyr, the old German Ziu or Zio^"* 
are cognates; and Max Miiller w^rites concerning them: 
"We have in the Veda the invocations Z>y«5-^:>/^ a r, the 
Greek Zeo-a-rjp^ the Latin Jupiter; and that means in all 
the three languages what it meant before these three lan- 
guages were torn asunder, — it means Heaven-father." 

These facts are fatal to the theological theory of evolu- 
tion. From them it seems evident that man began with 
the idea of one God, and gradually fell into idolatry, 
obscuring the original idea, but never completely effacing 
it. He debased the grandest and most central thought of 
his religion; he never quite succeeded in effecting its 
destruction, Were the Evolution hypothesis true this pro- 



THE ORIGIN" OF NATURE. 49 

cess would have been reversed; man would have started 
with belief in many gods, and have risen to the thought 
of one; but as the facts prove retrogression first and then 
progress, we are obliged to regard the hypothesis as un- 
worthy of confidence. And as it fails to account for the 
origin of the idea of God, and as we find the idea at the 
very dawning of human history, and apparently native to 
every human soul, we are shut up to the conclusion that 
no explanation is possible, apart from the corresponding 
reality to which it points. 

But if the idea of God is inexplicable without God, 
the origin of nature is equally r'ncomprehensible without 
Him. Who is there that can form even a vague concep- 
tion of how the universe came into being or was fashioned 
in beauty and clothed with deepest symbolism when the 
existence of an Infinite Intelligence is denied? Much is 
written about nebulae, about plastic matter, about atoms 
and molecules, about ages of measureless duration, when 
the molten mass whence sprang all things was gradually 
cooling and shaping itself into suns, moons, stars and satel- 
lites ; about the condensation of its particles, the radiation 
of its heat, and its rotary motion; about the formation of 
great rings, which continued to whirl and spin, like wheels, 
until each was broken into fragments and pursued its cir- 
cumrotation around its own appropriate center. Much also 
has been written about the earth, — how at the beginning 
it was a liquid, fiery ball, with zones of vapor belting it, 
which turned into water and filled the cracks and chasms 
of the cooling crust with broad-heaving seas and deep- 
flowing streams; and how, after the lapse of untold ages, 
infusorial life appeared and the struggle for existence 
commenced, which in the course of time, and after throes 
of agony, extermination and transient conflict, culminated 
in the development of man from inferior species. All this 
is interesting enough, and it all may be true, but I defy 
4 



50 ISMS OLD Ai^D NEW. 

any one to understand it apart from the creative wisdom 
and almightiness of God. Spontaneous motion and spon- 
taneous generation, and the fortuitous concurrence of 
atoms, which have been marshaled with great pomp and 
royalty of language to explain this complicated marvel, 
but darken what they undertake to illuminate; they are 
but myths of science, — deep, involved, bewildering, — or 
gorgeous speculations, dazzling with electric brilliancy, 
and like the electric light creating denser and more pain- 
ful shadows than they disperse. Whence came the primal 
force, of which so much is affirmed, and what at first dis- 
turbed the original inertia of matter? What determined 
the origin, the order and arrangement of the atoms or the 
molecules, concerning which we know so little and about 
which so many talk learned emptiness ? We really know 
absolutely nothing of their essential nature, as they are 
invisible and intangible, and consequently are beyond the 
range of our analysis. How came they, then, to combine, 
what started them on their career, and how came it that 
their complicated combinations and mazy processionings 
produced the endless phenomena of the worlds ? We wait 
for an intelligent reply, and we shall wait for it eternally. 
Holbach, in answering similar questions, was obliged to 
admit : " We do not know, neither do you ; we never shall, 
you never will." But does some thinker, more intrepid 
than the German, reply: "Chance, necessity, is all that is 
logically required to account for everything"? But this 
accounts for nothing; it is simply a confession of igno- 
rance, and not in any sense an elucidation of the problem. 
It is merely to repeat the senile and senseless affirmation 
that the earth rests upon "the tortoise," but to leave un- 
answered the more vital question, " On what does the tor- 
toise rest?" 

Claudias, in his Chria, represents the illuminati as say- 
ing: "Whether there be a God, and what He may be, phi- 



THE DESIGK — ARGUMENT. 51 

losophy alone can teach, and without philosophy there can 
be no thought of God." "Good," answers the Master; 
"yet, though no man can say of me with a shadow of 
truth that I am a philosopher, I never go through the 
forest without thinking who makes the flowers grow, and 
then a faint and distant notion comes over me of a great 
Unknown One, and so reverently, yet so joyfully, does my 
heart thrill that I could wager that I am thinking of 
God." He instinctively recognizes the Worker by His 
work, and realizes that it is too wonderful, too beautiful, 
too closely allied to himself and too intimately related 
to his happiness for it to have been the result of unpre- 
meditating chance. And a similar impression led Lord 
Bacon to exclaim, "I had rather believe all the fables in 
the legend, and the Talmud and Al Koran, than that this 
universal frame is without mind; and therefore God never 
wrought miracles to convince Atheism, because His ordi- 
nary works convince it." 

They are right; the order of nature, as well as its origin, 
reveals intelligent design, and design cannot be explained 
apart from a great Designer. I know Lucretius disputed 
this proposition, but Aristotle recognized its force, and 
since his day many a heart has been made glad by what 
has been discerned of Infinite wisdom in the universe. Mr. 
Spencer may ridicule Paley's argument, but his admirer, 
Mr. Darwin, has more than confirmed it in what he has 
written about insect agency, and of remarkable instances 
of contrivance and prevision. Sir Charles Bell also has 
done good service in the same direction. When account- 
ing for his interest in the study of anatomy, he impressively 
wrote: "Everything there is so perfect, so curiously fitted, 
and leads you by little and little to the comprehension of 
a wisdom so perfect, that I am forced to believe that in 
the moral world things are not really left in all that disar- 
ray in which our partial view would persuade us they are." 



52 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

Even Mr. Holyoake, in his Debate with Townley, was con- 
strained to yield to the logic of such reasoning and "to 
allow that, so far as the design argument goes, it estab- 
lishes a being which is distinct from nature, — of limited 
nature." These are his own words, found in the London 
edition of this celebrated controversy, published in 1852, 
and now somewhat rare. Hume, Natural History of 
Religion^ declared "that the whole frame of nature be- 
speaks an intelligent Author"; and Voltaire, as is well 
known, fully sympathized with this conclusion, as, indeed, 
did Thomas Paine, and both gave it their unqualified sup- 
port and testified to it repeatedly with graceful eloquence. 

I shall never forget a similar testimony borne by the 
late Professor Peirce, of Harvard, one of the most devout 
scientists I ever had the pleasure to meet, who, in a lec- 
ture on the Nebular Hypothesis, delivered before a select 
company at the Chestnut Street Club, in Boston, dwelt on 
the evidences of Divine existence and wisdom which it 
afforded, and incidentally called attention to the fact that 
"the wing of the eagle is never found in the ^^^ of a 
goose." Simple and commonplace as the statement was 
it condensed in itself an irresistible argument. One could 
not believe that from sources so similar pinions would 
unfold so differently, unless previously ordered and ar- 
ranged by a thinking mind. He demonstrated that in the 
lowest organizations, as well as in the highest, the marks 
of design are too conspicuous to admit of cavil or doubt; 
and thus led he his hearers, eloquently and with poetic 
pathos, "through nature up to nature's God." 

Yes, up to Grod, for to Him, and to Him alone, do the 
labyrinthine and complicated wonders of the universe 
point. When that awe-inspiring name is spoken, when 
He is looked up to and devoutly recognized as the primal, 
all-sufficient Cause, the problem of creation seems less in- 
volved and inscrutable. Even if His name does not alto- 



ATHEISTIC RELIGIONS. 53 

gether satisfy the head, it meets the questionings of the 
heart. At least every other attempted solution of the 
mystery is vague, irrelevant, incoherent and utterly mean- 
ingless. This alone is clear, complete and comprehensive, 
and is practically unanswerable. That as the sole Cause 
He is perfectly adequate to account for all things no one 
has yet had the temerity to deny. All that the Atheist 
claims is that nature is comprehensible without Him, 
not that it is incomprehensible with Him. Every one 
admits that He is a sufficient explanation; the atheistic- 
ally inclined only try to show that He is an unneces- 
sary one. I have aimed in these brief paragraphs to 
show that their position is untenable; that it does not and 
cannot account for things as they are; that their solu- 
tions of the problem, with His name omitted and His 
agency ignored, are irreconcilable with the evidences of 
design and with what we know of the properties of 
matter, and involve us in confusing contradictions and 
inextricable perplexities. 

It may seem very singular to you that anyone should 
have suggested the possibility of religion with no God 
acknowledged in its faith or reverenced in its worship. 
Yet this is a favorite assumption of some quick-gaited 
followers of modern thought. Thus, as quoted by Mr. 
Mallock, " Professor Tyndall points with delighted confi- 
dence to the gospel of Buddhism as one of pure human 
ethics, divorced not only from Brahma and the Brah- 
minic trinity, but even from the existence of God"; and 
M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire asserts that "there is not 
the slightest trace of a belief in God in all Buddhism." 
The Positive Philosophy advocates something akin to 
this. As man is the highest being which it can consist- 
ently recognize, it proposes to worship collective human- 
ity with all the enthusiasm such a deity can inspire, 
and to derive from it a scheme of morals that shall put 



54 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

to blush the inferior ethics of Christianity. Verily the 
sagacious Lichtenberg was not mad when he prophesied: 
" This world of ours will become so refined, that it will 
be as ridiculous to believe in God as it now is to believe in 
ghosts. And then the world will become still more 
refined — then we shall believe only in ghosts. We shall 
ourselves become as God." 

Now with due deference to Professor Tyndall and M. 
Saint-Hilaire I may be allowed to say that while Bud- 
dhism as a system says nothing about God, His existence 
is not denied; and most likely, by its founder, was assumed, 
as his doctrine was based on the Veda, in which it is fully 
recognized. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that 
the followers of Buddha did not abandon the ancient 
deities whom their fathers worshiped, such as Indra and 
Brahma, and that Buddha himself came to be regarded as 
the most exalted being in the universe. He who deter- 
mined all the circumstances of his own incarnation, and 
who delivered infallible doctrine, could not fail to receive 
divine honors, or become as fully God to the faith of 
millions, as Christ is to untold numbers of His disciples. 
Hence such prayers as this, reproduced by Johnson from 
Franck's Etudes Orient ales^ and in use among the Mon- 
golians: " O thou in whom all creatures trust, Buddha, per- 
fected amidst countless revolutions of worlds, compassion- 
ate toward all, and their eternal salvation, bend down 
into this our sphere, with all thy society of perfected 
ones. Thou law of all creatures, brighter than the sun, 
in faith we humble ourselves before thee. Thou who 
completest all pilgrimage, also dwellest in the world of 
rest, before whom all is but transient, descend by 
thy almighty power, and bless us." In Thibetan 
Buddhism, Avalok-iteswara, its manifested deity, is said 
to hear and answer prayer, and that they who trust in 
him are secure. And in Nepaul, where Buddhism pre- 



HISTORICAL CREEDS. 55 

vails, theism is not divorced from the system, but is in- 
terwoven with it, and is doubtless one cause o£ its vigor. 
As to Positivism, that is as yet an experiment; but I do 
not think much is hazarded in predicting that its influ- 
ence will never extend beyond a limited circle of pecul- 
iar, not to say abnormal, souls. It is inconceivable that 
common- sense people will ever be persuaded to worship 
ideal humanity, or to agree in founding a church in 
which man shall be both priest and deity. The w^orld 
is not yet a lunatic asylum, and it is not probable that 
it will soon so far become one as to deify the perishing 
and adore the impotent. 

While it is not true that religions have flourished 
where " The fool hath said in his heart, * there is no 
God,' " it is true that their worth and purity depend very 
largely on the conceptions formed of His attributes and 
character. What He is, they are. His nature as a rule 
decides theirs. A savage, cruel deity can hardly beget 
anything but a harsh faith and a cruel ritual; but a lov- 
ing, merciful God will ever be the fruitful source of sym- 
pathy and tenderness in the institutions that are reared 
to magnify His name. He Himself ^vill be reflected 
in the rites and ceremonies of formal worship as well as 
in the lives of His people. This principle explains the 
differences that separate historic faiths from each other 
and shows why some are gross and others refined, some 
animalistic and others spiritual, and indicates how im- 
portant it is not merely to think of God, but to think 
of Him aright. It also very clearly proves that the 
growth of pure religion in the world can only be pro- 
moted by knowing more of Him: certainly not by deny- 
ing Him altogether. And if religion is thus a necessity 
of our nature, which the Atheist concedes when he claims 
that the prevalence of his creed Avould not destroy it, 
and if, as we have argued, it is inseparable from a 



56 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

recognition of the Almighty, then we cannot but con- 
clude that its character and universality demonstrate the 
reality of His existence. 

A vigorous imagination is doubtless needed to affirm 
that the elevation of humanity is practicable without God; 
yet such is the dream of Gustave Flourens, and of a few 
other visionary mortals. The gentleman just named, ap- 
parently in a state of semi-frenzy, has been pleased to 
write. "Our enemy is God. Hatred of God is the begin- 
ning of wisdom. If mankind would make true progress it 
must be on the basis of Atheism;" and Mr. Bradlaugh so 
far approves this startling view as to say: ^'Atheism, 
properly understood, is in no sense a cold, barren negative; 
it is, on the contrary, a hearty, truthful affirmation of all 
truth. You cannot get your scheme of morality without 
it." Are these gentlemen drugged or mad, or has the entire 
race gone crazy and they alone retained their senses ? As- 
suredly either the eleven jurymen have turned imbeciles, 
or the twelfth one is sadly muddled and demented. Which ? 
It may, however, relieve our perplexities and allay our fears 
to learn that Mr. Holyoake has controverted these obnox- 
ious sentiments, distinctly declaring that "Atheism, as 
such, gives no system of truth and no scheme of morality." 
These champions of a common creed may be left to reconcile 
their differences as best they may. It is enough for us to 
know, an enemy being judge, that theists are not so stupid 
as Flourens and his sympathizers insinuate. We doubtless 
have heard similar groundless tirades against the Deity 
nearer home. Some things in Colonel Ingersoll's brilliant 
invectives, and various statements in Professor Draper's 
uncandid criticisms, suggest that religion has really been 
a hindrance to human progress, and that until it is finally 
abolished all that is possible can never be accomplished. 
One would suppose that belief in God has been an unmiti- 
gated curse to the race, darkening the intellect, afflicting 



ATHEISM AXD MORALITY. 57 

the heart, and burdening the life. Indeed, against it, in 
one form or another, these accusations have been brought 
repeatedly. It has been over and over again alleged that 
faith in God has excited fear, has paralyzed inquiry, has 
impeded freedom of thought and speech, has deepened 
bigotry, resisted science, and intensified selfishness and 
prejudice. If these charges are true, if theism has ren- 
dered mankind ignoble, miserable, dwarfed its growth and 
checked its onward march, then indeed must it be admit- 
ted that human elevation is not only practicable without 
God, but would really be accelerated if His name could be 
erased from the vocabulary of thought. But can any sane 
man, familiar with history and free from blinding antipa- 
thy to Christianity, admit such monstrous allegations? 

That which we call morality is grounded on the being 
and governorship of the Almighty. In Him the source of 
righteousness is recognized, and from Him it derives its 
sanction. Right and wrong were meaningless terms were 
it not that they represent eternal and necessary distinc- 
tions which even the Infinite cannot abrogate, and account- 
ability would be to all intents and purposes a fiction were 
it not that He lives and reigns. Obligation is only another 
word for theism: for it involves theism, and is inseparable 
from it. Doubtless it is possible for some men who have 
been reared in an atmosphere of Christian faith, and who 
have received from pious parents correct principles of 
conduct, to live upright lives ; but it cannot be shown 
that a community entirely ignorant of religion and its 
sacred influence, and fully convinced of the certainty of 
Atheism, would be able to derive from it adequate motives 
to virtue, or would even be able to believe in virtue at all. 
Why should Plato have banished all Atheists from his 
ideal Republic, and why was Cicero so intent against 
them ? Perhaps Voltaire may help us to a satisfactory 
reply. In his Philosophical Dictionary he says with 



58 ISMS OLD AXD NEW. 

much pungency: "I would not wish to come in the way 
of an atheistical prince, whose interest it should be to 
have me pounded in a mortar. I am quite sure that I 
should be so pounded. Were I a sovereign, I would not 
have to do with atheistical courtiers, whose interest it was 
to poison me; I should be under the necessity of taking 
an antidote every day. It is, then, absolutely necessary 
for princes and people that the idea of a Supreme Being, 
creating, governing, and rewarding and punishing, be 
engraven on their minds." That is, he believed, as did 
both Plato and Cicero, that the well-being of society de- 
pends on morality, and morality on God; and that, there- 
fore, they who deny His existence will be far from feeling 
that sense of obligation which would make them honest 
rulers or useful and worthy citizens. This seems to have 
been the judgment of antiquity, — a judgment repeated 
by the best minds of modern times, and a judgment more 
than justified by those brief, disastrous periods, and by 
those unhappy cities, in which atheism has held temporary 
sway. 

Morality is the source and inspiration of progress; it 
quickens and purifies genius and industry; it stimulates 
and encourages thought and endeavor. The countries 
where science and art have flourished are those which 
have adhered most firmly to its principles, and have traced 
them most uniformly to an Invisible Source. What dis- 
covery, what great enterprise, what beneficent revolution, 
what enlarged benevolence, what victory for freedom, 
what achievement for art, is due to the influence of athe- 
ism ? Has it delivered the captive, rescued the fallen, 
lifted up the oppressed, strengthened the weak, defended 
the helpless? No; its record is unhonored with accounts 
of such deeds. It is a melancholy and disgraceful blank. 
Never has it given to the world a Plato, a Copernicus, a 
Galileo, a Bacon, a Milton, an Angelo, a Wilberforce, or 



MISERY OF ATHEISM. 59 

any other great name entitled to rank with the benefac- 
tors of mankind. It has actually done nothing to advance 
the well-being of humanity; and yet it has in these last 
days the effrontery to represent itself as sufficiently bene- 
ficent to be the real and only Messiah. May we be saved 
from its millennium I for if it bear likeness to its past 
history, the wilderness and solitary place will only be 
more solitary, and the blossoming rose will return to 
desert dreariness. 

Then, as to fear and wretchedness, how does it come to 
pass, if theism is untrue, that in proportion as it is doubted 
these evils grow denser in the soul? When it was rejected 
in Rome, suicide increased. The most distinguished men 
of those times felt that existence was worthless; and Scho- 
penhauer, who in our day has elaborated Godless material- 
ism into a poem, wailingly and sneeringly contends that 
"all possessions are vanity, the world a bankrupt in all 
quarters, and life a business that does not pay expenses." 
Such is the happiness that atheism offers and yields. Can 
there come anything but this awful and woful weariness 
when man is everlastingly confronted by eternal death, 
universal dumbness and echoing dissonances? Fear! How 
does atheism deliver from terror? It has banished God 
from thought, but has it excluded from apprehension that 
which these blind material forces, these overwhelming 
physical agencies, these subtle elements, ordered by law- 
less chance and frantic destiny, may do and work? In 
them there is no intelligence to appeal to, no mercy to 
call on, — only irresistible, reckless, heartless power and 
fate. AVell may we cower before such devastating and 
consuming monsters, such huge, uncontrollable and soul- 
less antagonists. In their grasp we are more helpless than 
infants; before their breath we are as frail as the bubble 
that is shattered by the gentlest breeze, or the spray-drop 
that glistens for a moment on the crested wave and is 



60 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

then beaten back into the obhvion of the deep by the tri- 
umphant wind. The recognition of Deity has inspired 
fear, and must; but not such terrible, hopeless fear as 
does ungoverned and ungovernable nature. He, at least, 
can be communed with; on Him, at least, the oppressed 
can lean; and unto Him, at least, the' weary toilers can 
hope to go when death terminates their bitter sorrows; but 
nature has no heart to feel, no hand to help, and no refuge 
but a loathsome grave in which despair can hide its an- 
guish. 

Is it not ridiculous, then, to believe that human prog- 
ress is feasible, with Godless nature, like a dead timepiece, 
for its guide and inspiration ? If the universe is but a 
dial without a hand, how can we poor mortals know the 
time of day, or recognize the duty of the hour? Such a 
dumb, motionless horologe, without ever a morning chime 
to awaken slumbering virtue or a midnight bell to toll the 
doom of wakeful viciousness, would hardly promote the 
moral order of society or exalt the character of its mem- 
bers. And if my argument has been sound throughout, 
though proofs of the Divine existence have not been 
formally attempted, it must necessarily follow, as the idea 
of God is not explicable without Him, as the origin of 
nature is not comprehensible without Him, as the preva- 
lence of religion is not possible without Him, or the eleva- 
tion of humanity practicable without Him, that He must 
be the One everlasting reality and imperishable glory of 
the universe. 

The reproach of the pagan world pronounced by Paul, 
"that when they knew God they glorified Him not as 
God," unhappily is not undeserved by many in our own 
times. Theoretical atheism generally may have been re- 
jected, but that which is practical yet holds in bondage 
the large majority of souls. Inconsiderateness of Divine 
things, prayerlessness and godlessness, are the common 



PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 61 

evils of the age. Men and women who sincerely count 
themselves believers in the central truth of religion never 
bow the knee before God's throne; they avoid His sanc- 
tuary, and keep every thought of His presence and power 
as far as possible from them. They live every day as 
though there were no God, and act as though they stood 
not in the blaze of His omniscience, and were not hasten- 
ing, with every fleeting breath, to His judgment seat. 
End, I beseech you, end this inconsistency. Learn that 
He who made you seeks to dwell in you ; that He who 
rules over you w^ould fain become your friend and guide. 
Though you are weak and frail, though you are poor and 
helpless. He does not despise you, but would glorify your 
being with His own, and raise you to fellowship with 
Himself. Think of Him, turn to Him, love and obey 
Him, and then will you know from blessed experience 
what it is to live and move and have your being in Him. 

" What am I ? Naught. 
Nothing! yet the eflauence of Thy light divine, 
Pervading worlds, hath reached my bosom too; 
Yes, in my spirit doth Thy spirit shine. 
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew. 
Naught ! but I live, and on hope's pinions fly 
Eager toward Thy presence ; for in Thee 
I live, and breathe, and dwell, aspiring high, 
Even to the throne of Thy divinity." 



PANTHEISM. 

" For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Acts xvii, 28. 

" Hallowed be Thy name — Hallelujah ! 
Infinite Ideality ! 
Immeasurable Reality! 
Infinite Personality! 
Hallowed be Thy name — Hallelujah ! 
We feel we are nothing — for all is Thou and in Thee; 
We feel we are something — that also has come from Thee. 
We are nothing, O Thou — but Thou wilt help us to be! 
Hallowed be Thy name — Hallelujah! " 

Alfred Tennyson. 

AMONG the Hindu lore collected by Viscount Am- 
-^-^ berley we have the following interesting legend: 
A wise farther said to his son Swetaketu: "Dissolve this 
salt in water, and appear before me to-morrow morning." 
The youth obeyed, and when on the return of day he 
saluted his sire he was directed to find the salt that he 
had mingled with the water on the previous evening. He 
acknowledged that he could not, Then answered the 
parent: "Taste a little of the refreshing element, — a few 
drops from the top, a few from the middle and a few from 
the bottom. What is the flavor?" "The water is salt- 
ish," replied Swetaketu. "If so, wash your mouth and 
grieve not." Having done as he was bidden, he said to 
his father: "The salt that I put in the water exists for- 
ever; though it is not perceived by my eyes it is felt by 
my tongue." "Verily such is the case with truth, my 
child," responded the sage, who was seeking to illustrate 
the deep mystery of the finite-infinite: "though you per- 
ceive it not, nevertheless it pervades this body. That 

62 



HINDU PANTHEISM. 63 

particle which is the soul of all, this is truth; it is the 
universal soul. O Swetaketu, thou art That ! " 

We have in this brief dialogue a hint of that strange 
doctrine which fills so large a place in Hindu philosophy, 
and which, in more logical shape, has exerted a profound 
influence on modern European speculations. I refer to 
Pantheism, — that remarkable belief of which traces are 
apparent in the world's most venerable religions; which 
renders Atheism impossible by identifying the Almighty 
with the universe; which substitutes all-God for no-God; 
which declares that God is everything, or that everything 
is God, and which thus makes Him the center and circum- 
ference, the essence and the substance, of every order of 
existence and of every species of phenomena. Glimpses of 
an all-embracing, all-comprehending, all-pervading Being, 
who is the ^^ anima inundi^'' are afforded us in the sacred 
memorials of ancient faiths. The Veda represents Him 
as Essence, and thus chants His nature in its hymns of 
praise: 

"The wise man views that mysterious Being 
In whom the universe perpetually exists, 
Resting upon that sole support, 
In Him is the world absorbed, 
From Him it issues. 
In creatures is He twined and wove in various forms." 

In the Mahdbhdrata Vishnu is presented as the su- 
preme Deity, who is revealed in everything, and who in 
himself is everything. Thus he describes himself when 
holding converse with a mortal, whom he is inciting to 
slay his relatives by the argument that all life is illusive 
except the Divine, and that, therefore, he will only be 
destroying an appearance: "I am the soul, O Arjuna, 
which exists in the heart of all beings; and I am the 
beginning and the middle, and also the end, of existing 
things." Thus, also, among the Egyptians we find above 



64 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

their multiplied mythological gods One, and only One, to 
whom is given the name Ra, concerning whom George 
Ebers writes in TJarda: "Under the name Ra we under- 
stand something different than is known to the common 
herd; for to us the universe is God, and in each of its 
parts we recognize a manifestation of that highest Being, 
without whom nothing is in the heights above or in the 
depths below." . . . "Whether we view the sun, the har- 
vest, or the Nile; whether we contemplate with admiration 
the unity and harmony of the visible or invisible world, 
still it is always with the only, the all-embracing One, we 
have to do, to whom we also ourselves belong as those 
of His manifestations, in which He places His self-con- 
sciousness." An English version of Hermes gives the 
following quotation, which throws additional light on this 
Egyptian conception of a diffused Divinity : " There is 
nothing in the whole world which God is not. He is 
being and non-being. He has manifested being, but He 
has non-being in Himself." . . . "Thou art what I am; 
Thou art what I do; Thou art what I say; Thou art all 
which is produced and which is not produced." And in 
the city of Alexandria the same mystical idea seems to 
have blended with the worship of Serapis; for when 
Nicocreon, King of Cyprus, consulted him he received 
this reply: 

" A god I am, such as I show to thee, 
The starry heavens my head, my trunk the sea ; 
Earth forms my feet, mine ears the air supplies, 
The sun's far-darting, brilliant rays mine eyes." 

According to this representation Serapis and nature 
were looked upon as one and indivisible; and similarly, 
in the " Boundless Time " of the Parsees, the " Bythos," 
or "The Depths" of the Ophites, and the "Closed Eye" 
of the Kabalists, we find suggestions of the 



ELEATIC SPECULATIONS. 65 

" One harmonious whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul." 

" To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; 
He fills. He bounds, connects, and equals all." 

Pantheism also, among the Greeks, had its advocates. 
The pre-Socratic philosophers were more or less tainted 
with it, though it first attained complete expression in 
the teachings of the Eleatics. Xenophanes, the founder 
of this school, says Aristotle, "casting his eyes upward 
at the immensity of heaven, declared that the One is 
God." Hunt, in his admirable treatise on this subject, 
represents Parmenides, the successor of Xenophanes, as 
holding to a species of Acosmism, which led him to chal- 
lenge the reality of external appearances, and to assume 
that " thought is the same thing as being," and " that 
nothing, in fact, is, or will be, distinct from being." In 
contrast with Eleaticisni, the mystical Heraclitus, a phi- 
losopher who constantly lived in a "cave of cloud," un- 
able to discover the Absolute, taught that the universe 
is neither being nor non-being, but an eternal Becoming, 
and this eternal Becoming, as in the case of the Eleatics, 
he identified with the One. " Unite the whole and the 
not-whole," he argues, "the coalescing and the not-co- 
alescing, the harmonious and the discordant, and thus we 
have the one Becoming from the all, and the all from 
the One." 

Not to these sources, however, but to Spinoza (1677), 
must Pantheism, as it influences thought in our day, be 
traced. This celebrated man was a Jew, dark-featured, 
slender, delicate, emaciated, consumptive, who was pub- 
licly excommunicated from the congregation of his ances- 
tors on account of the belief, or unbelief, that was in him. 
The views, which he never took pains to conceal, not only- 
resulted in his expulsion from the synagogue, but con- 
9 



66 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

demned him to a life of toil and indigence. He obtained 
enough for his absolute necessities by polishing lenses; 
and in a forlorn Dutch chamber at The Hague, forsaken 
by friends, and ridiculed by enemies, he worked out his 
philosophical system, which, while fiercely assailed and 
vulnerable at several points, remains a monument of its 
author's genius and industry. His death occurred when 
he was only forty-five years old, younger than Goethe and 
Kant were when they began to give the world the fruit of 
their reading and thinking. While Christians must de- 
plore the perversion of his great talents, they should care- 
fully avoid alluding to him as one who has no claims on 
their charity and respect. He was no moral monster, no 
hard-hearted wretch, no callous profligate. His only vice 
was the comparatively harmless one of smoking, his only 
villainy arraying spiders against each other in battle, and 
his principal amusement the struggle of flies caught in the 
web of their mortal insect-antagonists. He was reverent 
in spirit, devout, not to say religious, blameless in life, and 
uncomplaining in death. While we differ from him, then, 
let us not depreciate ; while we combat his theories, let us 
not calumniate his character. 

A comprehensive idea of his philosophy may be gath- 
ered, not only from his own writings, but from those of 
his biographers, annotators, and expositors — such as G. 
H. Lewes, Emile Saisset, Schelling, Hegel, Hunt, Morell, 
and Cousin. In his own words we have this summary: 
"The foundation of all that exists is the one eternal 
substance, which makes its actual appearance in the 
double world of thought, and of matter existing in space. 
Individual forms emerge from the womb of this substance, 
as of ever-fertile nature, to be again swallowed up in 
the stream of life. As the waves of the sea rise and 
sink, so does individual life arise to sink back again 
into that common life which is the death of all indi- 



TEACHINGS OF SPIXOZA. 67 

vidual existence." Victor Cousin, in his History of Phi- 
losophy, gives the following statement of his doctrine: 
" With Spinoza the single substance is all, and the indi- 
viduals are nothing. This substance is not the nominal 
unity of the assemblage of individuals, each of which 
exists singly, but is the single really existing substance, 
and in the presence of that substance the world and men 
are but shadows; so that from the Ethics may be gath- 
ered an exaggerated Theism, which leaves no individual 
existing as such." M. Saisset, a critic of no mean ability, 
describes our philosophic Jew as holding that " God sleeps 
in the mineral, dreams in the animal, and awakens into 
consciousness in the man " ; and Luthardt, regarding Hegel 
as a disciple of Spinoza, represents him, in common with 
Morell {^Historical and Critical View, it, 10 Jf, 155), as 
maintaining "that the absolute is the universal reason, 
which, having first buried and lost itself in nature, recov- 
ers itself in man, in the shape of self-conscious mind, in 
which the absolute, at the close of its great process, comes 
again to itself, and comprises itself in unity with itself. 
This process of m.ind is God. Man's thought of God is 
the existence of God! God has no independent being or 
existence; He exists only in us. God does not know him- 
self; it is we who know Him." That is, to sum up these 
various representations, consubstantiation of the finite and 
Infinite, of the natural and Supernatural, of the human 
and Divine; and transubstantiation, through which, mys- 
teriously, one becomes the other and yet remains the same, 
are the two leading and all-comprehensive articles of the 
Pantheistic creed. 

The extent to which these views prevail in our time is 
not generally realized. They appear with more or less 
distinctness in the writings of Emerson. His Oversoul 
is an eloquent, though somewhat incoherent, species of 
Pantheism; and in Theodore Parker's works, especially in 



68 ISMS OLD AlfD NEW. 

his Discourse 07i Heligion, numerous passages occur which 
manifest his sympathy with Schleiermacher's drift in the 
same direction. Cultivated people admire Spinoza, and 
the class of sentiments now widely current in literature, 
which grow out of his philosophy, are cherished on account 
of their poetic sweetness, little attention being bestowed 
on their accuracy or value. They do not pause to con- 
sider the effect morally and theologically of a system, 
which in many instances they are pleased with, but do 
not understand, and whose claims on their attention as 
rational beings they have never taken pains to examine. 
Believing, as I do, that its influence is disastrous, I desire, 
within the insufficient limits of a sermon, to point out its 
radical defects in such a way as to lay a broad foundation 
for a more intelligible and salutary Theism. In doing so I 
shall argue: 

First, That Godhood without personality is Godhood 
without perfection; 

Second, That manhood without individuality is man- 
hood without responsibility; 

Third, That morality without liberty is morality with- 
out virtue. 

Fourth, That immortality without consciousness is im- 
mortality without existence. 

Our notion of personality is derived from what we see 
of it in the world; and it must be confessed that it seems 
incompatible with any adequate idea of the infinite or 
absolute. Limitation and limitlessness cannot, with log- 
ical consistency, be predicated of the same being. To say 
tha.t God is infinite, as we understand the term, is to say 
that He is entirely unconditioned; and for Him to be 
unconditioned is for Him to be impersonal; and converse- 
ly, to say that He is personal, that is, conditioned, is to 
say that He is not infinite; and to say that He is not infi- 
nite is to deny that He is God, This is the dilemma 



SPINOZA ON THE INFINITE. 69 

which has confronted everyone who has seriously consid- 
ered the philosophy of Spinoza, and which has driven many 
into the denial of personality, that they might preserve 
the notion of infinitude. Nor do I see any other course 
open for us if we continue to employ these terms, as they 
are usually defined. If we regard the meaning which is 
assigned to them as complete and exhaustive, then we 
must admit that they are irreconcilable with each other. 
But in all candor, is it not too much to claim that human 
reason has fathomed the nature of the infinite, and com- 
prehended in full all that is really involved in personality, 
for it to pronounce dogmatically on the possibility or im- 
possibility of their coexistence ? After all, what we really 
know in these directions is very vague and shadowy and 
much too indefinite for us to found a coherent and consist- 
ent system on. They who take the trouble to read Sir 
W. Hamilton, and Dean Mansel, and the replies which 
have been made to their metaphysical theories by Mr. Mill 
and Mr. Spencer, must be convinced that while we un- 
doubtedly know that the infinite is, we do not know in 
any true sense v.'hat it is. As Dr. Porter says of one of 
the terms in debate: "Originally, and etymologically, it 
signifies freed from, or severed. This signification is 
purely negative, and waits to be explained by that from 
which it is freed." That our knowledge is not complete, 
accurate, scientific and sufficiently reliable to serve as a 
basis for an unyielding, positive theory has never been 
more fully demonstrated than by Spinoza himself. He 
writes: "I understand by God the Absolutely Infinite 
Being; that is to say, substance constituted by an infinity 
of attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and in- 
finite essence." [Ethics, p. 4. Van Nostrand's edition.) 
But may it not be asked, in all modesty, if God is abso- 
lutely infinite, how comes it that He is " constituted " ? 
and if " substance " is constituted by an infinity of attri- 



70 ISM'S OLD AN"D KEW. 

butes, how is it possible for it to be what Spinoza himself 
affirms it to be, "that which exists of itself, and is con- 
ceived by and through itself, or that of which the concep- 
tion can be formed without having need of the conception 
of any other thing as its cause " ? Now it seems evident 
to me, if God is substance, and if substance is that "the 
conception of which does not involve the conception of 
any other thing," then He is not " constituted by an in- 
finity of attributes"; but if He is thus constituted, then 
He is not "that which is in itself, and is conceived by 
itself," and therefore He is not absolute, or absolutely 
infinite. Thus, following these contradictory statements, 
we arrive at the conclusion that even Spinoza could not 
define infinity without destroying it, and that therefore to 
erect a house on a foundation so unsubstantial is to pro- 
vide in advance for its utter demolition. 

Let the unconquerableness of our ignorance on this 
point be conceded, and let it also be granted that God's 
personality should not be likened, in every respect, to our 
own, but should be taken as simply denoting that He is 
separable from His works, and is wise, loving, merciful 
and free, and we shall at least feel the difficulty of recon- 
ciliation so far abated that it will cease to be insuperable. 
If we are not prepared to do this we shall assuredly do 
worse; we shall rashly sacrifice His perfection in our zeal 
for His infinitude; for an impersonal Deity can never be 
other than an imperfect one. To deny His supreme con- 
sciousness, wisdom, volition and sovereignty, as is done by 
Pantheism, is to rob Him of what we cannot but regard 
as among His chiefest glories. That devout instinct which 
prompts us to acknowledge Him as infinite, impels us to 
ascribe to Him the attributes of intelligence, and stripped 
of these He is destitute of what most powerfully affects 
the human soul for good. If He cannot be conceived as 
thinking, willing, decreeing, then all of His manifestations 



THE IMPERFECT I^iTFlNITE. 71 

of Himself, must be thought of as determined by some- 
thing else, — some omnipotent necessity, some all-govern- 
ing law, or some self-unfolding and self-sustaining force — 
so that, in reality. He ceases to be Supreme; and thus in 
our extreme solicitude for impersonalism we render im- 
possible His Godhood. 

But Pantheism assails His perfection at other points. 
If He is identihed with the universe, then He is mobile, 
mutable and variable, and is in a state of perpetual 
flux and change. As there has been development in 
nature, so if He is one with it, there has been develop- 
ment in God. He is not, according to this supposition, 
what He has been, and is not what He will be, and there- 
fore has not yet fully attained to what He may be, and 
must be. It is not correct then, if this theory is admissi- 
ble, ever to say that God is, but that He is becoming; for 
what He is now He was not at an earlier stage in the his- 
tory of the universe, and what He will be at a later period 
He has not been heretofore. This is not a caricature of 
the doctrine we are considering, for it is but another way 
of putting the statement already quoted, in which God is 
represented as arriving at self-consciousness in man. But 
such a conception is irreconcilable witli the idea of per- 
fection; for if, as Schelling says, "there is one force, one 
alternating agency, one weaving, one impulse, one tend- 
ency toward ever higher life," while it may be attained 
in the future it has never been reached in the past; and 
until it is attained, if we worship at all we are worshiping 
the Imperfect. It was the recognition of this outcome of 
Pantheistic premises that led M. Saisset indignantly to 
exclaim: "Away from me, vain phantoms of the imagina- 
tion! God is eternally all that He is. If He is the Cre- 
ator, He creates eternally. If He creates the world, it is 
not from chance or caprice, but for reasons worthy of 
Himself; and these reasons are eternal." Yes, as the 



72 ISMS OLD AK-D NEW. 

Scriptures teach, He is forever the same, and " His years 
have no end." 

This criticism may legitimately be carried yet further; 
for if impersonalism is true, and God and the universe are 
convertible terms, then everything that exists, evil as well 
as good, wrong as well as right, impurity as well as purity, 
must be ascribed to Him, — must be traced to His nature, 
and be found in His essence. While we Avitness in the 
world much that is deserving admiration and homage, we 
cannot fail also to perceive much to fill us with pain and 
loathing. Deceitfulness, violence, cruelty, heartlessness, 
viciousness, licentiousness, lawlessness, — these rage and 
riot, filling the earth with bitterness and w^oe. From 
them the healthy mind shrinks with anguish and horror; 
it condemns the guilty, and seeks to restrain the malig- 
nant power of w^ickedness. But in this, if we are to credit 
Pantheism, it is wasting an immense amount of feeling; 
for that which kindles its indignation, after all, is only 
an expression of the Supreme whom we are bound to 
worship. Wrong doing, and every species of abomination, 
we nmst regard, in the light of this philosophy, as Divine 
effluxions, and therefore as unmeriting condemnation. 
But is it possible to think of such a Being as absolutely 
faultless? And is it possible, when we regard the neces- 
sary strife between good and evil as an actual warfare 
in His own members, — for such it is if both spring 
from His nature, and are equally its counterpart, — not 
to conclude that whatever else may be affirmed of Him, 
perfection certainly can not. Verily, when God is set 
forth as everything. He rapidly degenerates into noth- 
ing; when He is sought everywhere, at last He is found 
nowhere; and when He is refined into impersonal Infinity, 
He speedily becomes imperfection, unlimited and incalcu- 
lable. 

The sense of responsibility is inseparable from man- 



MORAL LIBERTY. 73 

hood, and the recognition of individuality is inseparable 
from responsibility. But if, as this Ism teaches, humanity 
is but part of the Universal Soul, and particular men but 
rays of the all-pervading Spirit, then individuality is prac- 
tically annihilated, and with it falls everything that sug- 
gests the idea of moral freedom and obligation. Spinoza 
does not shrink from avowing this as his belief. He says 
explicitly: "Free will is a chimera, flattering to our pride 
and in reality founded upon our ignorance. All that I can 
say to those w^ho believe that they can, by virtue of any 
free decision of the soul, speak or be silent, — or, to use a 
single word, act, — is that they dream with their eyes 
open." Ignorance! dreams! — Is there, then, nothing but 
fallacy reigning in the vast domain of right and w^rong? 
Let us take an appeal from such a suspicion to fact 
and w^e sliall find that there is nothing more real than the 
consciousness of "the me" in distinction from "the thee," 
and of "the thine" in contradistinction to "the mine," — 
terms with which the sense of moral duty is indissolubly 
blended. We do not and we cannot, unless it be sympa- 
thetically, identify ourselves with each other, and no effort 
of the imagination succeeds in making us feel that we are 
absolutely one with Deity. He may influence us, dwell in 
us even, but we never fail to distinguish betw^een His 
existence and our owm, and His operation is never con- 
founded with our own volition. We discriminate instinct- 
ively and uniformly between the Temple and the Being 
who dwells there, and between His inspiration and our 
own action. No amount of philosophy m* theology has 
ever eradicated, or even seriously diminished, this sense 
of individuality, and we may conclude that its vitality is 
due to the fact that it answers to an unimjDeachable real- 
ity. In no other w^ay can it be intelligibly explained, and 
any system that antagonizes with it must in the nature of 
things be radically erroneous. It will not be denied that 



74 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

obligation is a fiction, a morbid illusion, unless each man 
is a complete and separate existence. If he is not, then 
everything like moral conviction is a chimera, a deceitful 
hallucination. But is it not strange that such an ignis 
fatmis and fantastic mirage as this, if such it is, should 
have proven so incalculably advantageous to society, and 
should have led it forward step by step, as this has done, 
in the march of progress? Indeed, it is more than strange, 
it is unaccountable. Fancies, imaginations, are not the 
weapons by which the real evils of life are overcome, and 
illusions have never yet cleared the way for permanent 
advancement. Believe me, there is something more in 
this abiding sense of responsibility than the Pantheist will 
allow. It is, and endures, because man is a being, not 
an effluence, and is related to other beings, and is not so 
identified with them, or merged into them, that reciprocal 
rights are meaningless and reciprocal duties impossible. 
Obligation rests on individuality, and the realization of 
the one will be proportionate to the consciousness of the 
other; and if this is a true account of the matter the 
theory that strikes at either must be fatally defective. 
And that it is may be inferred from sentiments expressed 
by brilliant men who are more or less influenced by Spi- 
noza's teachings. For instance, Goethe, in his Hymn to 
Nature, seeks to pacify his conscience in the following 
convenient w^ay: "She placed me in it; she will also lead 
me forth. I trust myself to her. She may dispose of me. 
She will not hate her work. I spake not of her. No: 
whatever is true and whatever is false she spake it all. 
All is her fault and all her merit." Thus does the roman- 
tic German dispose of troublesome misgivings concerning 
accountability. And our American transcendentalist gives 
it as his opinion that " Nature as we know her is no 
saint." "The lights of the church, the ascetics, Gentoos 
and Grahamites, she does not distinguish by any favor; 



MORALITY AN^D VIRTUE. 75 

she comes eating and drinking and sinning." . . . "My 
friend suggested: 'But these impulses may be from below, 
not from above,' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to 
be such, but if I am the devil's child I will live, then, for 
the devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my 
own nature.' " The tendency of such sentiments as these, 
and they are creeping into our literature more persistently 
and commonly than many suspect, cannot be at all doubt- 
ful. However harmless they may have been to their au- 
thors, if generally adopted and acted on by the unedu- 
cated and miseducated masses of society, they would 
speedily convert them into the children of Satan, and 
change this beautiful earth of ours into a howling Pande- 
monium. 

In one of the propositions brought to your attention at 
the beginning of this discussion I ventured a statement 
which draws a wide distinction between morality and vir- 
tue. These terms, I know, are usually regarded as syno- 
nyms, and yet, admitting that they are, it does not follow 
that they are identical in meaning. They may present, as 
I believe they do, very diif erent shades of the same thought. 
"Morality," in my opinion, suggests right conduct; but 
the word "virtue" expresses the real worth and merit 
which attaches to such conduct. A man may be moral in 
all of his dealings, and be influenced only by a cold, calcu- 
lating spirit of policy, or he may, in all that he does, be 
but a fortunate creature of circumstances. There is, how- 
ever, no strength of conviction in such a course of life, no 
firmness of principle, no resistance of evil; in a word, no 
"strength,"— ^ an element which the term "virtue" always 
implies. If this is absent from what we call moral con- 
duct, its chief charm is gone, and we are inclined to treat 
its pretensions with contempt. Probably this estimate 
springs from the fact that the presence of the high quality 
which imparts grandeur to conduct involves selfhood, the 



76 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

exercise of volition, the assertion of liberty. Without 
freedom there could be no choice of a path in life, no pur- 
suit of the right in the face of difficulties, and no resistance 
of wrong even at immense personal sacrifice; and so with- 
out freedom there would in reality be no virtue; and with- 
out virtue there would hardly be anything in morality to 
distinguish it from mere decorum. Permit me to illustrate 
this distinction yet further. Let us suppose the case of 
one so rigidly trained in the practice of integrity, so care- 
fully shielded from temptation, and so free, from childhood, 
of everything like human appetite, or passionate desire, 
that never a thought of wandering occurs, and never an 
inclination to err is felt; the life of such an one would be 
admirable, and would kindle our esteem, but it would 
never arouse in us enthusiasm and ardent praise. The 
morality in it would be acknowledged, and would be duly 
and apathetically approved, but it would not be regarded 
as exhibiting the grand reality of virtue. Such blameless- 
ness must be viewed as natural, and therefore as unavoida- 
ble, and if unavoidable, as undeserving of any special com- 
mendation. But when a soul, like Plato's suffering right- 
eous man, is surrounded with circumstances unfavorable 
to right-doing, when he is beset with evils of every de- 
scription, when he is afflicted, crushed and wronged, and 
yet never deviates from the straight line of duty, we 
instinctively recognize something higher than mechanical 
morality, something exalted and noble, challenging our 
homage and awakening our reverence. We see that such 
an one might have been expected to yield to these over- 
whelming odds, and when he overcomes, we discern the 
power of volition, of freedom; we recognize a sublime 
" strength " asserting itself on the side of integrity, and 
we call that strength " virtue; " and in it we feel that our 
highest ideal of virtue is actualized. But suppose such 
choice were never possible; suppose that human beings 



PAN'THEISTIC IMMORTALITY. 77 

were always creatures of necessity; that the good they 
performed was simply the result of forces in them, unorigi- 
nated or uncontrolled by themselves; then at the best 
their morality would hardly be distinguishable from im- 
morality. If Pantheism is true, this is actually the case. 
There being nothing but God, and God being everything, 
human volition is not in any real sense free, and con- 
sequently, while there may be outwardly correct conduct, 
virtue in its deepest sense is unattainable. This Spinoza 
candidly admits. " Nothing," he says, " is bad in itself. 
Good and evil indicate nothing positive in things, consid- 
ered in themselves, and are nothing but manners of think- 
ing. Not only has every man the right to seek his good, 
his pleasure, but he cannot do otherwise." — Works of 
Spiiiozciy vol. i, pp. 159-60. 

What shall we say, then, to a system which, in its in- 
sane endeavors to establish a metaphysical subtlety, — to 
uphold a conception which may be as baseless as it is per- 
plexing, — deliberately undermines the foundations of vir- 
tue and deprives society of its mightiest incentives to 
noble living ? We can only say that, as its speculations 
antagonize with what is eminently practical and vital, how- 
ever sublime they may seem they are self -condemned, and 
are undeserving of support. 

What a fiction is the immortality which Pantheism 
encourages its disciples to expect. To return to the uni- 
versal soul, to be swallowed up in the Infinite, to be 
merged in the Supreme, to lose identity and conscious- 
ness, is the destiny it suavely proclaims. It is a euphonic 
description of annihilation, and nothing more. What dis- 
cernible diiference is there between this blank eternity 
and the coarse teachings of Materialism? According to 
both, the light that is in us must go out, and we return 
to the oblivion whence we came. The Materialist fore- 
shadows a future for us all in the dewy grass, to be 



78 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

munched by the lowing herd; in the fragrant flowers, 
to be trampled under foot of men; in the swift sailing, 
evanescent cloud, or in the varied forms of animal and 
human life. We are to reappear in the coming genera- 
tions, and our decay is to nourish their vitality. The 
Pantheist teaches that we shall go back, not indeed to 
the dull earth, but to what he is pleased to call '' God." 
In Him we shall happily cease to think, to love, and to be. 
The dewdrop shall mingle with the Sea, the wandering ray 
shall be withdrawn into the bosom of primal Light, and 
the little ego be quenched m the all-absorbing and ever- 
lasting " I Am " of the universe. And, according to 
Emerson, all human beings, of whatever moral character, 
shall equally attain to this questionable felicity; for ''the 
divine effort is never relaxed; the carrion in the sun will 
convert itself into grass and flowers, and man, though in 
brothels, in jails, or on gibbets, is on his way to all that 
is truly good." 

But this self-oblivion and self -extinction in the Infinite 
One is not the intuitive hope of humanity, nor is it the 
promise of Revelation. The natural longing of the heart 
is for personal immortality, — for endless conscious exist- 
ence. This is what is meant by all that poets and phi- 
losophers, untainted by Pantheism, have written on the 
subject, and this is what the unuttered and unutterable 
visions of the Beyond mean to the undying soul. To 
live continuously, to defy the power of death, to ascend 
to higher ranges of existence, to meet the great and good 
who have gone before, to welcome the noble and the pure 
who shall come after, and to enjoy eternally the fellow- 
ship of the saved, — this is the radiant hope that sustains 
us here and invests hereafter with its charm and glory. 
Why should we thrust it from us ? Why should we for 
a moment listen to the doleful croaking of a Strauss, who, 
shrouded in "the blanket of the dark," mutters harshly 



THE TRUE THEISM. 79 

**that the last enemy to be destroyed is not death, but the 
hope of immortality ? " Why accept such dreary forebod- 
ings and deny the profoundest instinct of our being* for 
the sake of a mere abstraction ? Why doubt the reality of 
the immortality we feel for the sake of^ a guess about the 
nature of the Infinite, which we cannot verify ? Too much 
is asked, too little is given in return; and when it is real- 
ized that eternal life must be repudiated, and virtue, in- 
dividuality, and even Divine perfection, must be sacrificed 
if the truth of Pantheism is allowed, we do not hesitate 
to declare that the vastness of its demands should be suf- 
ficient proof to every candid mind of its untenableness. 

In closing this study permit me to set before you two 
additional propositions which in my judgment express the 
only Theism that is rational and deserving the confidence 
of intelligent beings: 

First, God is the source of nature, not its essence; 
and nature is the manifestation of God, not His fullness. 

Second, God is the inspiration of humanity, not its 
soul; and humanity is the similitude of God, not His sub- 
stance. 

The first of these propositions asserts a difference be- 
tween the Creator and His w^ork. Schelling declares that 
"all individual finite things taken together cannot consti- 
tute God, since that w^hich is in nature derived cannot be 
one with its original." This is just what I believe, and 
consequently I see in the great universe a revelation of its 
author, but not His substance nor His essence. He is 
above all, back of all, and through all the reality of His 
being and the greatness of His Godhead may be seen. 
Nature is His temple^ and it is like that one of glass which 
the sun-worshipers built that their deity might stream in 
and be with them; it is transparent, and through its walls 
and through its starry roof He reveals Himself, as the light 
penetrates and shines through the flinty crystal. There is 



80 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

something that beams on you from the flower, that sparkles 
in the water, that gleams in the sun's radiance, and in the 
moon's quiet luster; something that oppresses you, and yet 
exalts you in the gigantic magnitudes of the heavens, and 
in the dense forests and overpowering solitudes of the earth, 
which does not answer to the names you invent to describe 
it. You call it "beauty," or "sublimity," or "grandeur," 
but you feel that these terms are inadequate, that they 
fall short of truth. Call it God! Yes, call it God! for 
God it is. It is His eyes that look down upon you from 
the stars, His smile that glances at you from flower and 
wave, His love that answers yours in every form of beauty, 
and His awful greatness that appeals to you in the won- 
ders of the universe. "If," as said the Psalmist, "I 
ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed 
in hell, behold Thou art there. If I take the wings of the 
morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even 
there shall Thy hand lead me." Yes, there, and there^ and 
there — everywhere. But this is not Pantheism. The 
Almighty is not heaven, but in heaven; not hades, but hi 
hades; not the uttermost parts of the sea, but filling them 
with His immeasurable presence and unspeakable majesty. 
"Of God, and through Him and to Him are all things;" 
and nature that sprang from His thought, and is sustained 
by His power, is also "to Him," — is His symbol, the 
manifold expression of His greatness. Before Him she 
breathes the incense of her homage, and offers to Him the 
tribute of her praise. She points to Him, and with her 
many voices cries that to Him, not to her, — not to the 
temple, but to the God who fashioned it and dwells in it, 
— should all people bring their offerings of adoring love. 

Though the Almighty is not the soul of humanity He 
is its inspiration, for " in God we live and move and have 
our being." Each living thinking entity is His creation, 
made for Himself and related to Him. He moves upon 



THE TRUE PANTHEISM. 81 

mind and heart, begetting exalted thoughts and holiest 
resolves, even as it is written, "The inspiration of the 
Almighty giveth understanding." He is the real source 
of whatever has been, of whatever is great, good, noble or 
heroic in mind and deed. Without Him cannot anything 
be done that is worthy to live in the memory of earth, or 
worthy to receive the reward of heaven. And yet the 
doing is ours, not His. He inspired it, we wrought it out. 
He quickened, but we brought forth. His the heart-beat, 
but ours the hand-stroke; His the influence, ours the efflu- 
ence. Here man's true dignity is made apparent. It does 
not consist in his being a fraction of the Godhead, but in 
being a distinct existence, made so truly in the Divine 
image that he can hold communion with his Maker, can 
respond to the infinite One, can receive Him, abide in 
Him, and live in correspondence with Him, — yea, and can 
grow yet more fully into His likeness, and blend so com- 
pletely with His spirit, that while personality is never 
lost. He becomes to the soul its All and in All forever. 

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living 
God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in 
them, and I will be their God and they shall be my peo- 
ple"; and know ye not "he who dwelleth in love dwelleth 
in God, and God in him ? " When humanity shall deeply 
realize the truth of these declarations, conscious of its 
heavenly affinities, it will seek closer fellowship with the 
Highest, and attaining to that oneness for which our 
Savior prayed, it will apprehend the only Pantheism in 
which reason can believe or the heart rejoice, — the Pan- 
theism which leads the devout soul to sing, with Madam 
Guyon : 

" I am as nothing, and rejoice to be, 
Emptied and lost, and swallowed up in Thee," 

and which is alike synonymous with individual identity 
and immortal blessedness. 
6 



MATEEIALISM. 

" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." / Cor. xx>^ 32. 

" For everywhere 
We're too materialistic, — eating clay 
(Like men of the West) instead of Adam's corn 
And ISToah's wine ; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, 
Until we're tilled up to the throat with clay, 
And grow the grimy color of the ground 
On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist 
The age's name is. God Himself with some 
Is apprehended as the bare result 
Of what His hand materially has made." 

Mrs. E. B. Browning, 

A FABLE is current in England of a youth who 
picked up a piece of money lying in the highway. 
After this good fortune it is said he always kept his eyes 
fixed on the ground, hoping to find stray coins, and in the 
course of a long life gathered from the road and street 
quite an amount of gold, silver and copper. But during 
all this time he was depriving himself of greater treasures.. 
As his glance never wandered from the dusty, filthy way 
of his feet, he never saw the starry heavens above him nor 
the glories of nature's scenery around him. He died poor. 
Though he had scraped together considerable wealth he 
passed into eternity without knowing that earth is some- 
thing more than a dirty place where money may be found 
as the journey is made from the cradle to the grave. 

For now some years gone Science has been disposed to 
walk with its eyes down-bent. Ever since it made a few 
important physical discoveries, such as the antiquity of the 



MATERIALISM DEFIiq^ED. 83 

globe, the procession and progress of life, and brought to 
light the petrified memorials of former animal and veg- 
etable generations, such as the siliceous fossil shells of the 
Galionelli, some interesting specimens of the Ichthyosaura, 
the Plesiosaura, Mosasaurus and the Iguanodon, its gaze 
has been steadfastly centered on the material. Upon that it 
has lavished so much attention that the universe has come 
in its philosophy to be the child of cosmic sparks, and 
reason to be the grandchild of diffused fire-mist. It is still 
busy looking for additional discoveries, feeling in the mire 
for wealth. But though it multiply its riches, it is grow- 
ing poorer and poorer, for it is losing sight of God, Christ, 
angels, providence and immortality, and is groping its way 
through the world blind to the real glory and significance 
of creation, failing to discern that nature is the real 
Jacob's ladder on which celestial beings are ascending and 
descending, a Patmos isle in an unshored ocean, where 
visions of invisible realms shine through all its manifold 
shapes and forms. 

It is not necessary to trace the rise and progress of 
this Ism from the time of Leucippus, Democritus and Epi- 
curus to Feuerbach and La Mettrie, and from them to our 
more modern evolutionists. Whatever peculiarities or 
variations may have distinguished it at various points in 
its history, it has always been substantially the same. 
It has ever regarded the raw eternal matter, the elemen- 
tary stuff of creation, as the only substance and as the 
all-sufficient cause of every variety and species of life. 
Its god, formerly dwarfed to the meager proportions of 
an atom, is now further dwindled to the insignificance 
of a molecule; it is, however, the same deity, only grown 
infinitely little. While it recognizes a scepter, which 
it calls "force," it acknowledges no intelligent hand to 
sway it;, while it perceives a throne, w^hich it honors with 
the name of "law," no loving, infinite Being is seen to 



84 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

reign there, and while in original chaos it finds a compli- 
cated laboratory it discerns no all-wise chemist regulating 
and determining its subtle and mysterious combinations, 
from which universes proceed. Materialism, old and new, 
when stripped of its rhetoric, simply writes "mindless" 
on the dateless procession of things, and teaches that 
these things come from nowhere, as they are eternal; are 
marching nowhither, as they are practically endless, and 
that over them is nobody, as they are self-fashioned and 
self-sustained. As Lucretius is reported to have ex- 
pressed it, " Nature is seen to do all these things spon- 
taneously of herself, without the meddling of the gods." 
And man is looked on as earth-begotten, earth-bound, 
and earth-destined; and his sublimer and deeper aspira- 
tions and affinities are belittled or ignored. 

Unquestionably these teachings are exerting a tremen- 
dous influence on our times. Our relations with the visi- 
ble are so intimate, our susceptibility to its impressions so 
keen, our bodily demands so imperative, and the dominion 
of our senses so absolute, that we are strongly drawn 
toward whatever promises to minister to the sway of the 
physical. Shakspeare wrote: 

" There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim : 
Such harmony is in immortal souls, 
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 

That is, we are so wrapped about with the heavy folds 
of dull earthiness that we cannot always detect the music 
of the spiritual within, nor catch its echoes in the uni- 
verse without. We are, therefore, liable to be imposed 
on by materialistic philosophy, and to yield submission 
when it should be questioned and resisted. It has an 
ally in man himself, in the dominancy of the physical. 



MATERIAL PROGRESS. 85 

which may account for its present prevalent potency. 
And very likely the character of our civilization itself 
has enhanced its power. Wherever we turn we find 
matter triumphant. Science has laid bare the vastness 
of its magnitudes, has subordinated its forces to human 
service, and has rendered possible the magnificent achieve- 
ments of machinery which lighten labor and promote in- 
dustry. We talk along wires, we fly along rails, we hear 
through our teeth, we almost see without eyes, and even 
the supposition of Dr. Bowen may become actual in the 
future, — skill may be able to construct a wooden footman 
whose " exact and unvarying obedience may be more than 
could be expected of any but a superhuman footman." If 
it would only give us such a Bridget, in these days of 
maid-servant supremacy, our joy indeed would be full. 
Who knows? A new aim or ambition has been developed 
by the successes of science, and instead of seeking prima- 
rily the culture of soul, we are concerned with the con- 
quest and improvement of nature. Everywhere we are 
digging, delving, mining, projecting railroads, compassing 
seas, reclaiming lands, and making everything tributary 
to man's temporal gratification and comfort. For six days 
in the week we are devoted to the interests of matter, 
and begrudge a small portion of the seventh in which to 
consider the claims of spirit. Is it not, then, probable 
that this undue prominence given to one aspect of the 
universe blinds us to the reality of any other, and dis- 
poses us to give heed to a philosophy whose terms ex- 
clude everything else? 

Whether I have guessed the true explanation of the 
present widespread influence of materialism others must 
judge; but there can be no doubt that its extent is such 
that earnest words must be spoken, and earnest efforts 
be made, if society is to be saved from bondage to the 
sensuous, and inspired anew with belief in the supersensu- 



86 ISMS OLD AND NEW, 

ous and immortal. As contributing to this end, I suggest 
the following propositions for thoughtful consideration: 

First, Materialism is too imaginative to be either sci- 
entific or reasonable. 

Second, Materialism is too debasing to be either credi- 
ble or attractive. 

Third, Materialism is too impoverishing to be either 
probable or possible. 

The assumptions of this Ism are numerous and bold. It 
asserts that matter is the only substance in the universe, 
or at least the only substance of which we have any defi- 
nite knowledge, or about which we can argue with cer- 
tainty. For its teachings, consequently, it claims implicit 
confidence as being necessarily beyond cavil and dis- 
pute. But surely it forgets that very wise men have 
questioned the reality of this visible w^orld to which it 
is so attached, and of which it makes so much. The 
idealism of Berkeley, grounded in the non-existence and 
impossibility of external nature, and the belief of Faraday 
in the immateriality of physical objects, go far toward 
proving that this boasted certainty is somewhat uncertain, 
and that the definite, after all, is very indefinite. As Pro- 
fessor B. Stewart, in his Conservation of Energy^ says: 
" The universe has more than one point of view, and there 
are possibly regions which will not yield their treasures to 
the most determined physicists, armed only with kilo- 
grammes, and meters, and standard clocks; " and in anoth- 
er place he adds: " We know nothing, or next to nothing, 
of the ultimate structure and properties of matter, whether 
organic or inorganic." If he is warranted in this state- 
ment, how purely fanciful is the assertion that substance 
is one, and that it is the only, source of positive knowl- 
edge. And if this primary assumption is questionable, 
what shall be said of the second, that matter is capable, 
through its inalienable properties, of evolving inorganic 



SUPERSTITION AND SCIENCE. 87 

forms, developing-, also, organic life or growth, and even of 
originating- thought ? Here, assuredly, we have a tremen- 
dous stretch of the imagination. The ancient savage, in 
the dense depths of native ignorance, made to himself a 
mud fetich, and attributed to it divine energies. We smile 
at his infantile superstition, and we wonder that he could 
believe for a moment that a wretched heap of plastic filth 
could call into being the beauties and utilities of creation. 
But according to the Ism we are studying, this primitive 
superstition is the ultimate goal of science. Extremes 
meet. The savage and the scientist clasp hands, and the 
end of investigation is found at the beginning. It began 
with the worship of mud; it is ending with un worshiped, 
but deified, molecules. Wherein is the difference ? Why 
shall we stigmatize the faith of the savage as puerile, and 
yet honor the theory of the scientist with encomiums, as 
though it were the expression of the highest wisdom ? Are 
they not substantially the same ? 

While the essence of matter defies our scrutiny, for 
the sake of proving that it is capable of producing all 
that we see and feel, its simple and primary definition 
has been gradually enlarged. New qualities have been 
constantly ascribed to it, and as Dr. James Martineau 
quaintly says, " starting as a beggar, with scarce a rag of 
' property ' to cover its bones, it turns up as a prince when 
large undertakings are wanted, loaded with investments, 
and within an inch of a plenipotentiary." On which 
remarkable phenomenon he adds, addressing believers in 
its almost boundless resources: "In short, you give it 
precisely what you require to take from it; and when 
your definition has made it ' pregnant with all the future,' 
there is no wonder if from it all the future might be 
born." But the endeavors that have been put forth in this 
direction have never succeeded in making out that in each 
separate atom resides every force, every quality, every sen- 



88 ISMS OLD Al^D NEW, 

sation known to thought, yea, and thought itself, combined 
with consciousness by which thought is recognized j and 
anything short of this is fatal to the trustworthiness of the 
theory in debate; for the aggregate can never be more 
than an expression of the unit, and the whole can never 
manifest what is not potentially in the parts. Locke wit- 
nesses to the validity of this position in the following 
words: "Whatsoever is first of all things must necessa- 
rily contain in it, and actually have, at least all the perfec- 
tions that can ever after exist; nor can it ever give to 
another any perfection that it hath not actually in itself, 
or at least in a higher degree; it necessarily follows that 
the first eternal Being cannot be matter." The advocates 
of materialism, in their reasoning, constantly overlook this 
axiom, than which there is none more generally approved 
by philosophy. They are unable to show that whatever is 
in the effect was first in the cause, — that is, in the cause 
which they assign, — and, consequently, they are shut up 
to the illogical inference that there is something in the 
effect which is traceable to no cause whatever. We can- 
not believe that the greater springs from the less, or that 
something comes from nothing; and until we are convinced 
that our incredulity on this point is irrational, the explana- 
tion of the universe which assumes that the organic pro- 
ceeded from the inorganic, order from disorder, life from 
death, and thought from molecular motions, we must re- 
gard as fanciful, possibly seductive, but very imaginative, 
and certainly immeasurably less reasonable than that which 
attributes all things to an infinitely intelligent and sov- 
ereign Spirit. 

The assumption of Herbert Spencer that the ego, or 
conscious self, is merely "a group of psychical states con- 
stituting an impulse," and that of such writers as Mole- 
schott and Blichner that thought is determined and con- 
ditioned by phosphorus, can hardly be considered other 



MECHANICAL THEOKY OF THOUGHT. 89 

than whimsical extravagances of facetious science. Their 
advocates, however, at times seem to be serious enough. 
Mr. Huxley, for instance, appears to be very much in 
earnest when, in writing to Macmillan^s Magazine in 
1878, he says: "I believe that we shall arrive at a me- 
chanical equivalent of consciousness, just as we have ar- 
rived at a mechanical equivalent of -heat," and adds: "even 
those manifestations of intelligence and feeling which we 
rightly name the higher faculties are not excluded from 
this classification," But when the famous protoplasmist, 
in his Lay Sermons, confesses that how "anything so re- 
markable as a state of consciousness comes about as the 
result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable 
as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his 
lamp," we half suspect him of indulging in a little sly 
humor at our expense when he penned the first of these 
statements, as in the second he seems to attach as much 
value to it as he does to one of the Arabian Nights' mar- 
velous stories. Certainly they are not altogether consist- 
ent with each other, and on the authority of his Lay Ser- 
mon we may with propriety question the soundness of his 
doctrine in the magazine, and from the bearing of both 
conclude that the mechanical theory of thought is but a 
wild speculation, incapable of verification. 

Such writers as Dr. Maudsley soberly enough maintain 
that " the nerve-cells, which exist in countless numbers — 
about six hundred millions according to Meynert's calcula- 
tions — in the gray matter spread over the surface of the 
hemispheres, are the nervous centers of ideas;" or, accord* 
ing to the explanations given by others, " thought is a func- 
tion of the brain, and brain secretes thought as the liver 
secretes bile." It is undeniable that a most intimate rela- 
tion exists between mental phenomena and the brain. No 
one familiar with the literature on the subject would think 
of calling it in question. The brain seems to be in some 



90 ISMS OLD AKD Is^EW. 

way the organ of mind, but to identify them, or to assume 
that there is nothing but brain, or that it alone is the 
source of thought, is in my judgment to transgress the 
modesty of true science. This also seems to be the opin- 
ion of Professor Tyndall. In his Fragments of Scie7ice 
he expresses himself on this subject in these terms: "In 
affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and 
that thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the 
physics of the brain, I think the position of the Materialist 
is stated, as far as that position is a tenable one," . . . 
" I do not think that he is entitled to say that his molec- 
ular groupings and his molecular motions explain every- 
thing. In reality they explain nothing. The utmost he 
can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena, 
of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. 
The problem of the connection of body and soul is as in- 
soluble in its modern form as it was in the prescientific 
ages." — pp. 119, 120. And it is well known that Vir- 
chow, one of the most eminent of German scientists, when 
opposing the proposition of Haeckel and Nageli that ma- 
terialistic doctrines should be introduced into the system 
of public instruction, said very decidedly: "So long as no 
one can define for me the properties of carbon, hydrogen, 
oxygen, and nitrogen in such a way that I can conceive 
how, from the sum of them, a soul arises, so long am I 
unable to admit that we should be at all justified in im- 
porting the plastidulic soul into the course of our educa- 
tion." 

But, assuming that various and striking considerations 
can be adduced in favor of what is called " Cerebral Psy- 
chology," let us note whither it tends. For instance, on 
this hypothesis the bulk of the head and the measure of 
its contents, a healthy body being granted, ought to de- 
cide the quality of a man's intellectual life. Pure blood 
should be more needful than what we denominate educa- 



CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY. 91 

tion. Physical organs should be nourished with substan- 
tial food, not with ideas. What is it that we now attempt 
to educate in our schools? When we set about training 
a boy, what portion of him is it that receives attention ? 
Is it said that we try to cultivate the brain ? But, if so, 
are we not employing singular methods ? We are actually 
trying to build up, strengthen, and develop the material 
through the immaterial. If this hypothesis is tenable we 
should rather provide wholesome physical diet than innu- 
tritions knowledge; and if Moleschott is right when he 
says, ^^Ohne PhospJi07% Keln Gedanl'e,'''' then we should 
feed phosphorus to our youth and cram them as full of 
phosphorus as possible. And yet, were their heads as full 
of it as the sea, it would be no guaranty of exceptional 
brilliancy. Men who have been deprived of nourishing 
food, who have toiled m poverty, have conferred on the 
race the most enduring triumphs of thought, and others, 
like Milton, Spinoza, Cervantes, Bunyan, and Burns, pro- 
duced their masterpieces when in pinched want or in deep 
affliction; while many who were reared in affluence, who 
were both strong bodied and large headed, — and had all 
the phosphorus they desired, — have continued to the end 
mental drones. This ought not to be so if mechanical 
cerebration is true, and it cannot be explained unless it 
is acknowledged that the thinking subject is different 
from brain-tissues and nerve-centers, and at times Is capa- 
ble of surmounting their imperfections. 

And this is a conclusion to which we are impelled by 
other considerations. Instinctively we discriminate be- 
tween ourselves and our surroundmgs, and between 
"something" which we regard as "self" from the body 
in which it dwells. We are conscious of an existence 
which does not change with the flux and flow of the phys- 
ical, and which we identify as the same in age, manhood, 
and youth. Moreover, this "something" is able to an- 



92 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

tagonize with the body, to resist it and overcome it; and 
in so doing feels a distinctness from it and a superiority 
over it, and finds itself haunted with ideas of the 
infinite, the impersonal, the absolute, the abstract, which 
it in vain tries to trace to " the gray matter " of the brain 
or to the outward forms of the universe. This "some- 
thing " we call " soul," " spirit," perfectly distinguishable 
from the other substance by its phenomena, and which is 
conscious of its own existence and its own agency, and 
which is therefore beyond the reach of doubt. To deny 
its reality is to disregard the most unanswerable evi- 
dence, and prefer the region of chimera for that of fact. 
This is the judgment of many sober thinkers, and is ex- 
pressed by " one of the most eminent physicists of Eng- 
land," Prof. P. G. Tait, who, as quoted by Dr. Bowen in 
Liter aTif Gleanings^ remarks: " To say that even the very 
lowest forms of life, not to speak of its higher forms, still 
less of volition and consciousness, can be fully explained 
on physical principles alone — that is, by the mere relative 
motions and interactions of portions of inanimate matter, 
however refined and sublimated — is simply unscientific. 
There is absolutely nothing known in physical science 
which can lend the slightest support to such an idea." 
Such principles certainly cannot account for the won- 
derful aptitudes which distinguish some children, and 
which under the circumstances cannot be ascribed to the 
influence of education, such as the mathematical ability of 
Pascal, which asserted itself when he was twelve years 
old, as the musical genius of Mozart revealing itself in an 
opera composed when he was only eight summers in the 
world, or the artistic inspiration of West, or the military 
instincts of Napoleon. Here we meet with a phenomenon 
which "nothing known in physical science" can explain, 
and which strengthens the conviction that this entire 
theory is a day-dream, phantom, fiction of fairyland, a 



MIND IJ^ ANIMALS. 93 

rhapsody of visionary romancers and of scientific knights- 
errant, which has no foundation in the empire of facts, 
and should be discarded from the reahii of faith unless it 
should be accepted on the basis of '■'■Credo quia ah- 
siirdum.'''' 

Were its imaginativeness the only ground of objection 
we could afford, perhaps, to treat it with indifference, but 
unhappily it is debasing, and therefore its claims should be 
seriously challenged. The effort recently made by Professor 
Lindsay to identify the brute mind with the human is one 
that tends to obscure, if not to lessen, the sense of moral 
obligation, and to degrade the race to a lower level than 
it occupies at present. He relates some wonderful stories 
about animals, which could be matched with others 
equally striking, and he leaves the impression, though he 
does not aim to advocate any special doctrine, that man 
differs only in degree, not in kind, from his humbler asso- 
ciates. Interesting though his volumes are, they by no 
means succeed in bridging the chasm that separates the 
human from the animal. The inventive faculty, the pow- 
ers of ratiocination and abstraction, the moral sense, and 
the gift of language, are among the chief difficulties in the 
way of such a result. In the Descent of Man we find 
this discriminating objection: "A moral being is one who 
is capable of comparing his past and future actions and 
motives — of approving of some and disapproving of 
others; and the fact that man is the one being who with 
certainty can be thus designated makes the greatest of all 
distinctions between him and the lower animals." Such 
testimony from such a quarter ought to counteract the 
effect of Dr. Lindsay's inconclusive effort to establish the 
opposite view. And when it is realized that no adequate 
explanation of either reason or speech can be given on his 
hypothesis, it may be dismissed as untenable. Sussmilch, 
in 176-i, argued the impossibility of language without 



94 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

thought, and of thought without language; and if any 
such close connection exists between them as he main- 
tained, then it is certain that, as all skill has failed to 
teach animals to speak, for the mere automatic imitation 
of sounds is not speech, what is called thought in the 
brute and thought in the man are incapable of being clas- 
sified together. The German whom Dr. Bowen quotes as 
saying, " I will believe that animals have reason when one 
of them tells me so," in reality disposes of the whole ques- 
tion at issue; for when they find their tongue they will 
have found reason, and when that comes to pass we may, 
without discredit to our own intellect, acknowledge theirs. 
In his anxiety to make good his position. Dr. Lindsay 
says: "Even as regards man himself, it must be borne in 
mind . . . that there are countless thousands — many 
whole races — that are intellectually and morally the infe- 
rior of many well-trained mammals, such as the chimpan- 
zee, orang, dog, elephant, or horse," etc. But this is not a 
fair and ingenuous statement of the case; for the savage 
can hardly be found who entirely fails to feel the force 
of "ought" and "ought not;" and there is no animal in 
the world, however carefully trained, who knows anything 
about them, or is in the least degree conscious of them. 
But, after all, this is a question of capacity, not of train- 
ing. Under the most scrupulous discipline the dog re- 
mains a dog; up to a certain point he can be taught, 
and beyond it he cannot go. A recent writer has repre- 
sented the canine "as a candidate for humanity"; but it 
may be safely said that he has never yet succeeded in 
securing an election. On the other hand, no limit can be 
placed to man's development. He can advance indefi- 
nitely, and from the lowest form of intellectual life rise to 
the highest. The race has a capacity that is not shared 
by the dog; individuals may possess it in different de- 
grees as canine aptitudes differ, but the human nature, as 



m.\terializi:n-g life. 95 

such, is not to be classed with the brute nature, for even 
in its degradation it is infinitely higher, as its possibilities 
are infinitely greater. These comparisons, in my opinion, 
are always to be deplored, not merely because they rank 
some men lower than beasts, but because they leave the 
impression on many that essentially they do not rank 
above them. If, however, they are to be trusted, then 
thought is automatic, volition is mechanical, and the ideas 
of responsibility and duty are illusions; our noblest and 
purest emotions are due to a highly sensitive sensorium 
and a symmetrically arranged ganglia, and all that is 
divine in man dies out. If, as has been maintained by an 
English author, "the conduct of the elephant and of the 
tiger depends on their structure, and so, therefore, does 
that of man," then we must abandon the doctrine that he 
has any will that can initiate action, we must abrogate the 
ideas of guilt and innocence, and we should seek to edu- 
cate him as we train other animals, by processes suited to 
automata. No words can do justice to the degradincr 
influences of such teachings. They lead men to regard 
themselves as creatures of necessity, whose actions are no 
more praiseworthy or blameworthy than those of the cat 
or dog, and they gradually stifle and smother the con- 
sciousness of manhood, without which no heroic sacrifices 
or generous deeds are possible. 

As a result of this Ism we find that modern life is 
pretty thoroughly materialized. Of those who are striv- 
ing and struggling in this and other lands, how few there 
are who have set before them any other object than the 
accumulation of wealth. For this they abandon home and 
friends, spend sleepless nights and toilsome days, and en- 
dure enough of pain, mortification and anguish to make 
them martyrs in a holier cause. True, the desire for gain 
IS frequently subordinate to some other end; but how 
rarely is it anything radically better. In many cases the 



96 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

ambition is for means to satisfy luxurious tastes, to gratify 
senseless pride and vanity. Mansions, servants, carriages, 
horses, delicate wines, rare pictures, rich laces, and ele- 
gant appointments are valued on account of the favorable 
impression regarding their possessor which they are sup- 
posed to make on a v^orld which evermore walks by sight 
and not by faith. It may be that love of pleasure, or of 
power, rank, and office, or of the windy praise of his fel- 
lows, stimulates man to strive, but even these aims are of 
the earth earthy. They certainly fall infinitely below 
what they should be. To an appalling extent the people 
around us live without any pronounced desire to know 
God, indifferent to communion with Him, and careless of 
their immortal destiny. They do not seem to realize 
that they are other than a higher sort of animal, and do 
not recognize any obligation to unfold the God-likeness in 
them, or to reveal the goodness and beauty of the Re- 
deemer in their character and conduct. So absorbed is 
the ordinary mind in the terrible struggle for existence 
that is going on, so intently is it concentrated on sordid 
interests, that it is quite unfitted for spiritual concerns. 
Consequently attempts to read the Scriptures fail, the 
letters change to rows of figures, and the shortest road 
to affluence seems more important than finding the surest 
way to heaven. In prayer terrestrial riches strangely 
blend with the celestial, and supplications take on the 
tone of the market rather than the devoutness of the 
altar. These too common experiences, combined with the 
reluctance of many to go to church at all, and the anxiety 
of more to get out again after they have entered, show 
how the prevailing philosophy of our times is gradually 
hardening^ withering, and blighting the spiritual in hu- 
manity. Can such a system be credible? Can we regard 
it as attractive? Credible! Can that be credible which 
can only be established at the cost of all that is great and 



YAi^G CIIOO AND EMERSON. 97 

good in man ? Attractive ! Can that be attractive which 
allies us witli brutes, and which buries all our fair ideals 
in mud and slime ? Attractive possibly to worms wrig- 
gling in the earth, and to swine grunting over their swill, 
but assuredly not to men; not at least to those who will 
open their eyes wide enough to recognize the quagmire 
into which it is perceptibly sinking them. 

Already we perceive how ruthlessly this Ism plunders 
and impoverishes the race, and therefore only a few more 
words need be added on this point. Practically it robs 
the soul of God. Mr. Emerson, in The Unitarian 
Revieio, tries to estimate the extent and painfulness of 
this loss. He deplores "the solitude of the soul that 
is without God in the world," and likens it to "aimless, 
fatherless Cain," "who hears only the sound of his own 
footsteps in God's resplendent creation." To such a 
one "heaven and earth have been deprived of beauty, 
the sun of its power to cheer, and every great thought 
of its power to inspire." Here, indeed, is bankruptcy! 
Take away God, and the beggarly inventory of what is 
left is not worth the reading. Not satisfied with de- 
priving us of God, Materialism also plunders life of 
everything that makes it tolerable. It filches from the 
unsuspecting soul the sense of immortality, and in return 
leaves some such melancholy Gospel as that which Yang 
Choo comforts his disciples with: "All are born and all 
die; the intelligent and the stupid, the honorable and the 
mean. At ten years old some die; at a hundred years old 
some die. The virtuous and the sage die; the ruffian and 
the fool also die. Alive, they were Yaou and Shun, the 
most virtuous of men; dead, they are so much rotten bone. 
Alive, they were Klee and Chow, the most wicked of men; 
dead, they are so much rotten bone. While alive, there- 
fore, let us hasten to make the best of life; when about to 
die, let us treat the thing with indifference, and seeking 
7 



yy ISMS OLD Ai^D NEW. 

to accomplish our departure, so abandon ourselves to 
annihilation." One shudders as he reads. Yet this same 
death's-head philosophy, only skillfully adorned with flow- 
ers, is that which is current among high and low in Europe 
and America. No wonder that existence becomes insuf- 
ferably wearisome, unendurable and drearisome when it is 
overshadowed by such a upas. The perpetual and mean- 
ingless clatter, the endless and senseless rattle of this 
soulless mechanism which we call life, signifying and end- 
ing in nothing, can hardly fail to evoke gloominess and 
despair. Hence so many are wretched who seem to have 
everything needful for happiness, and so many are groan- 
ing who have every earthly reason to rejoice. Prosperity, 
palaces, pictures, pleasures, cannot satisfy the cravings of 
the soul, and after the excitement is passed which was 
experienced in their pursuit, there is nothing to sustain 
and satisfy. The question is now being asked, ''Is life 
worth living ? " and it is being as frequently answered by 
the grave of the suicide. In the light of Materialism it is 
not. Why should one strive, why plod on beneath oppress- 
ive burdens, why endure the agonies and shame of time, 
when oblivion in the quiet grave is so easy ? Apart from 
God, emptied of spiritual meaning and deprived of eter- 
nal hope, life is a curse, and no wonder if its unsatisfac- 
tory experiences and cruel disappointments madden the 
intellect, darken the heart, and drive the weary one to the 
repose of death. Well has Mr. Malloch summed up this 
intense and utter degradation when he trenchantly writes: 
" To bring into men's minds eternal corruption, instead of 
eternal life, — or, rather, not corruption, I should say, but 
putrefaction. For what is putrefaction but decomposi- 
tion ? And at the touch of science all our noblest ideas 
decompose and putrify till our whole souls are strewed with 
dead hopes and dead religions, with corpses of all the 
thoughts we loved 



IKCEEDIBLE. 99 

" 'Quickening slowly into lower forms.' " 

Can that be a true philosophy which pauperizes exist- 
ence, and that converts the fair earth into a potter's field, 
where beggars may find a refuge with worms, and hide 
their tattered wretchedness in the cold, narrow bed of 
annihilation ? True ? When hell is true, when devils are 
not false, and when wrong and error are not deceitful, it 
may be true. But not till then. Not till things most 
certain become uncertain, the harmonies of the universe 
be out of tune, and the foundations of eternal verities be 
shaken, can such a monstrous, rapacious theory be proba- 
ble to reason or possible to faith. Unhappy the soul who 
has been deceived by it, who has surrendered his sense of 
immortality to its block and ax, and who stumbles along 
over the ruins of once-cherished hopes and beliefs toward 
extinction. For him no sweet voices sing welcome in the 
far Beyond; for him no land of beauty unseen by mortal 
eye unfolds its loveliness; for him no Savior stands with 
extended arms inviting to the mansions blessed, and for 
him no endless vistas of unsurpassed and unsurpassable 
glory open as the scenes of time recede. No; all is dark, 
cold, forbidding. Every sunrise only hastens impending 
doom, every grave but tells of sad, irreparable decay, and 
ever}^ sunset is to him only the gorgeous, flaunting herald 
of annihilation. Annihilation is the burden of every mur- 
muring w^ind; it is articulated in the rustle of autumnal 
leaves; it is roared in the thunder clap, and seared into 
his soul by the lightning's shaft that splinters to naught 
the giant of the woods. This is to him the one sad mes- 
sage of creation; and all the voices within him and with- 
out sent by the Almighty to assure him of everlasting life 
have turned false prophets to his heart, and mutter death, 
only death, — nothing but death. 

While we deplore these insatiate ravages, we rejoice 



100 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

that the power of Materialism is less than its malignancy. 
It may destroy our ideals, it may crush our hopes, it may 
debase our life, it may lead us to doubt the being of God 
and the eternity of man, but it can go no farther. It may 
triumph over our faith in the realities against which it 
strives; but it never can prevail against the realities them- 
selves. It cannot empty the universe of God, cannot 
strike Him from His throne, or wrest the scepter from His 
hand. In this we will rejoice and be glad; yea, and w^e 
will shout for joy, because it is equally impotent in its war 
against humanity. It cannot dispossess the soul of im- 
mortality, cannot rob it of that endless life which is its 
glory, nor drown it in the seas of drear oblivion, nor doom 
it to the "Realm of Nothingness": 

" The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
But Thou slialt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements. 
The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." 

Of this we are assured, and in this confidence will we 
rejoice; and while we struggle with the thickening fogs 
of cold Materialism this hope shall sustain us, that the sun 
of truth, which for the moment it obscures but cannot 
extinguish, shall once more and forever stream through 
the misty veil, and with the night-scattering wings of 
light chase away the sorrows and the shadows which have 
settled on too many souls, and enshrouded them in gloom 
too long. 



NATURALISM, 

" Upholding all things by the word of His power." Hebrews i, 3. 

" There is a power 
Unseen that rules the illimitable world, 
That guides its motions, from the brightest star 
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mold ; 
While man, who madly deems himself the lord 
Of all, is naught but weakness and dependence." 

TJwmson. 

A RISTOTLE thought that Anaxagoras talked like a 
-^— ^ sober man, because he rejected the transcendental- 
ism of the Greek Pantheists, and advocated a system 
which recognized the reality of the visible universe, and 
attributed the existence and variety of material forms to 
the creative mind of God. Socrates, also, for the same 
reason, was at first disposed to admire the philosopher of 
Clazomenee. "Having one day," he says, "read a book 
of Anaxagoras, who said the Divine mind was the cause 
of all things, and drew them up in their proper ranks and 
classes, I was ravished with joy. I perceived that there 
was nothing more certain than this principle." But more 
intimate acquaintance with his writings did not confirm 
this good opinion. Socrates soon discovered that Anaxa- 
goras failed to inculcate sound views regarding a superin- 
tending and sustaining Providence, and criticised him 
accordingly in these terms: "He makes no further use of 
this mind, but assigns as the cause of the order and beauty 
that prevails in the world, the air, water, whirlwind, and 
other agencies of nature." It seems that this father of 
anti-transcendental theologies, while ascribing the origin 

101 



102 ISMS OLD A^D NEW. 

of all things to God, did not teach that He upholds them, 
governs or interferes with them in any way, except, at 
times, to correct their derangements or to avert their 
destruction. His was the machine theory of the Cosmos, 
which represents the Almighty as imparting to the works 
of His hands certain forces, and subordinating them to 
specific laws, and then as withdrawing from them to some 
remote retreat in infinite solitude, from whence to contem- 
plate with serene satisfaction, or serener indifference, their 
self-supporting and ceaseless operations. Such a philoso- 
phy, in which the Creator is comparable (to employ a 
Carlylian similitude) to a "clockmaker that once, in old 
immemorial ages, having made his Horologe of a Universe, 
sits ever since and sees it go," was not to the liking of 
Socrates. In his judgment it was radically defective, in- 
sufficient and inconclusive, stopping far short of the truth, 
and subversive of its fundamental postulate. 

The theory of an involved, boundlessly complex, and 
automatic system of worlds, rejected by the Athenian 
sage, has been revived in our day, and has grown, and is 
growing, in tumultuous popularity. While Naturalism in 
its extreme form is atheistic, as in the remarkable treatise 
of Baron D'Holbach, in its more moderate, if not more 
consistent shape, it concedes the Divine existence. It 
assumes that God is, and that He is necessary to account 
for the beginning of things; but it discredits the belief 
that He is indispensable to their maintenance, takes any 
direct interest in the affairs of His creatures, and either 
can or will interfere on their behalf. Naturalism, consid- 
ered as a theistic scheme, dispenses with the Almighty 
after He has made the universe, and assumes that, being 
completely made, it is abundantly able to take care of 
itself. Its favorite illustration, probably derived from 
Anaxagoras, by which it seeks to make plain to the sim- 
plest understanding the character of its teachings, is 



WHAT IS KATURALISM? 108 

founded on the structure and action of complicated ma- 
chinery. An engine, for instance, is fashioned by human 
intelligence and skill, arranged in harmony with particular 
principles, constructed to accomplish a specific end, capa- 
ble of generating steam, its motive force, and supplied 
with adequate fuel. Then, by the same intelligence, it is 
started on its journey, and afterward it runs along the rails 
independent of its contriver, propelled by its own inherent 
energies and in obedience to its own fundamental laws. 
The engineer may be drunk, asleep, or dead; the locomo- 
tive will, all the same, pursue its journey as far as the 
route extends, and as long as the steam endures. This, it 
is claimed, is a fair description of God's relation to the 
universe. He called matter into being, endov>'ed it with 
various properties and with all-sufficing potencies, molded, 
distributed and organized it according to a predetermined 
plan; and then, having shaped his suns and stars, and 
fixed the boundaries of their orbits, having rounded the 
earth, and furnished it svith animals, plants and human 
puppets, and having provided for every possible contin- 
gency; that is, having finished his enormous, complicated 
machine, with its jagged wheels and ponderous hammers, 
He removed His hand, gave the word of command, and 
the whole began to move, and has been moving ever since. 
If this analogy is justifiable, then from the creative hour 
" not wanted " might have been written on the throne of 
God. For if He has from the beginning stored up in 
nature all the forces requisite for its operations, neither 
His sleep nor death would have hindered or varied them in 
the least, or have made any perceptible or practicable 
difference. And if the theory which is thus illustrated is 
correct, and the Creator has withdrawn from His works, 
having committed them to the vicegerency of all-potent 
second causes, then prayer, of course, is useless, providen- 



104 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

tial care is a myth, and light or help from any other source 
than nature an absolute impossibility. 

And this is just what the Ism we are examining asserts. 
It denounces as the fruit of ignorance and superstition the 
belief that God is approachable, or can m any sense be 
influenced by His creatures, or ever interposes in behalf 
of their well-being. To even entertain such thoughts is 
reprobated as a sign of the weakness of man's reason, and 
of the strength of his vanity. We are exhorted to look 
upon the world, to study the past and the present, that 
we may see how utterly groundless these conceptions 
are. We are told that man will be found at the period of 
densest mental darkness attributing every strange phe- 
nomenon of nature and every remarkable event of history 
to supernatural interposition; but that as he advances in 
knowledge he gradually discovers his mistake, and repudi- 
ates his former superstition. In our day much that was 
regarded as the result of superhuman agencies is easily 
explained by natural causes. Continually we are solving 
mysteries before which our ancestors trembled; and in a 
little while we shall be able to account for everything with- 
out falling back on God, angels, or devils. Just in pro- 
portion as the intellect expands will the domain of the 
semi-miraculous diminish, until it dwindles down to a point 
too imperceptible for faith to build on. Naturalism also 
asks, what more can be needed for the moral culture and 
religious training of the race than the wonders and glories 
of creation, interpreted by science and apprehended by 
reason ? These surely must be efficacious to restrain from 
evil, to inspire goodness, and to kindle devotion. By their 
side, how mean, inadequate and powerless do cathedrals, 
with their tawdry decorations, and churches, with their 
silly preachings, appear. Why puzzle our heads and pain 
our hearts concerning revelations and gospels, when the 
true word of the Lord flames on us from the heavens and 



A FORSAKE^r WORLD. 105 

is articulated by the earth ? But whether sufficient or 
not, this is all we have or can have; He has spoken once — 
in creation — He has not spoken since, and never will 
speak again. To expect Him to open His sacred lips for 
man's behoof is as ridiculous as to suppose that He is con- 
stantly interfering with the established order of the uni- 
verse to answer prayer, or to bring special deliverances to 
individuals. Evidences of such condescension are scouted 
with derision. It is claimed by Naturalism that they have 
no existence outside of the imagination. In danger and 
distress men call upon God, and are not heard. The ship 
goes down in the night, the home is reduced to ashes in 
the fire, the harvest perishes in the storm, and the child 
dies in the parent's trembling arms, though prayers impor- 
tunate and fervent ascend to the throne of Him who is 
believed to have power to save ; yea, and minds sink 
beneath the burden of mystery which such a faith entails, 
and hearts are broken on this rock, and yet God rises 
not up to vindicate His name by affording help to the 
sufferer. How anyone, therefore, with these and similar 
facts before him, can cling to the doctrines of prayer and 
providence. Naturalistic advocates affect not to understand. 
Ignorance and unreason, they concede, may be deceived 
by them, but they cannot comprehend how men of intelli- 
gence can ever be persuaded of their truth. Judging these 
doctrines to be thus irrelevant, irreconcilable and irrational, 
they thrust them contemptuously away, and in effect write 
" fool " on the brow of every man who gives them enter- 
tainment. 

But what shall we say of the wisdom that rejects them? 
Naturalism assumes an air of intellectual superiority, and 
looks down with patronizing pity on the unfortunate peo- 
ple who are unable to rise to its lofty views of God and 
the universe. Perhaps it may not be amiss to name some 
of these unfortunates, and to take the true measure of 



106 ISMS OLD Aiq"D NEW. 

their folly. Permit me first of all to mention the venera- 
ble men who spake of old as they were moved by the Holy 
Spirit, and to whose influence the world undoubtedly owes 
much of its mental culture and moral refinement. The 
inspired prophets, poets and preachers acknowledge in 
glowing terms what is counted visionary and absurd by 
those who are enraptured with the idea of an impenetrable 
and imperturbable " Clockmaker Almighty." They delight 
to speak of Him as "The Great, the Mighty God, who 
hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the 
clouds are the dust of His feet; who is great in coun- 
sel and mighty in work, whose eyes are open upon all 
the ways of the sons of men to give everyone accord- 
ing to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings; 
and before whom all the inhabitants of the earth are 
reputed as nothing, and who doeth according to His 
will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of 
the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, 
' What doest Thou ? ' " Unto Him they cry, " O Lord God 
of our fathers, art not Thou God in heaven ? and rulest 
not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen ? and in 
Thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is 
able to withstand Thee ? Thine, O Lord, is the greatness 
and the power and the glory and the victory and the 
majesty; for all that is in the heaven and the earth is 
Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalt- 
ed as head above all. Both riches and honor come of 
Thee, and Thou reignest over all; and in Thine hand is 
power and might, and in Thine hand it is to make great, 
and to give strength unto all." "Even Thou art God 
alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, 
with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, 
the seas and all that is therein, and Thou preservest them 
all; Thy righteousness is like the great mountain; Thy 
judgments are a great deep; O Lord, Thou preservest man 



SCRIPTURE TESTIMON"Y. 107 

and beast; and by Thee all things consist." They confess 
that ''the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man 
that walketh to direct his steps; but his goings are of the 
Lord; for He giveth power to the faint, and to them that 
have no might He increaseth strength." They rejoice to 
record the Savior's assuring words, "Are not two sparrows 
sold for a farthing? and not one of them is forgotten 
before God; but even the very hairs of your head are all 
numbered. Fear not, therefore, ye are of more value than 
many sparrow^s"; and they are always confident that 
Jehovah is "their refuge and strength in every time of 
trouble," that He will arise upon them "as light in the 
darkness," that "He will uphold them with His hand," that 
"He will make them to dwell safely," and that "in their 
way He will cause life, and in their pathway no death." 
And thus, and in a thousand other ways, they represent 
Him as " upholding all things by the word of His powder," 
as being "a very present help," as sustaining, guiding, 
directing, and as working " all things together for good." 
To them He is no banished, absentee Jehovah, a rigid 
cast-iron Destiny, sitting listless, and watching the grind- 
ing of this acutely and wretchedly devised mill of life and 
death, — to them He is no dead Almighty Majesty en- 
tombed in the charnel house called the universe; no with- 
ered skeleton gleaming ghastly, like the bleached bones of 
the poor cardinal in Milan Cathedral, clothed with regal 
garments woven in the loom of eternity, and gorgeous 
with sun-spangles and stellar-scintillates. He is to them 
preeminently the Living God, the Ever Living One, the 
"King eternal, immortal, invisible," who is "not far from 
every one of us," "who is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that w^e ask or think," and who "worketh all 
things after the counsel of His own will." 

That this magnificent faith of theirs is not grounded in 
unreason as impartial a witness as Mr. Holyoake involun- 



108 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

tarily confesses. In his Debate with Tovmly he clearly 
shows the worthlessness of a Theism that excludes the 
Almighty from any direct interference with the affairs of 
His creatures. Upon this point he says, " If you tell me 
that God exists, that He is a power, or principle, or spirit, 
or light, or life, or love, or intelligence, or what you will 
— if He be not a father to whom His children may appeal, 
if He be not a provddence whom we may propitiate, and 
from whom we can obtain special help in the hour of dan- 
ger, — I say, practically, it does not matter to us whether 
He exists or not." That is, in the estimation of an Athe- 
ist, the Naturalist, whose Deity is, like Baal, asleep or on a 
journey when His creatures implore His aid, is not re- 
markably sagacious, as he is holding to a creed from 
which he has eliminated everything that renders it impor- 
tant, advantageous, and profitable. Thomas Jefferson is 
another such impartial witness, who, though skeptically 
inclined, had not discernment enough to perceive the 
senselessness and childishness of the supernatural. In his 
Notes on Virginia, when writing of the helpless condition 
of those who suffered from human cruelty and tyranny, he 
exclaims: "Doubtless a God of justice will awaken to a 
sense of their wrongs, and either by disseminating a sense 
of humanity in the bosoms of their oppressors, or by His 
exterminating thunders, show that this world is not gov- 
erned by a blind fatality." Is it not singular, if such ex- 
pectations are as illusory and extravagant as Naturalism 
claims, that so keen-sighted and long-headed a man as 
Mr. Jefferson should have been deceived by them ? But 
if it is said that this is accounted for by his lack of scien- 
tific knowledge, how shall we dispose of the views an- 
nounced by Newton, who cannot justly be charged with 
such ignorance ? Upon this subject he pens these immor- 
tal words: "This most beautiful system of the Sun, Plan- 
ets and Comets could only proceed from the counsel and 



THE WITNESS OF HISTORY. ' 109 

dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. . . . This 
Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but 
as Lord over all. The Supreme God is a being eternal, 
infinite, absolutely perfect. We know Him only by his 
most wise and excellent contrivance of things and final 
causes, we adore Him for his perfection; but we reverence 
and adore Him on account of his dominion. For we adore 
Him as his servants; and a god without dominion, provi- 
dence and final causes is nothing else but Fate and Nature." 
Evidently he did not regard faith in the personal over- 
sight and rulership of the Almighty as subversive either 
of common sense or of scientific accuracy. Leibnitz, also, 
expresses the conviction that " God is a good governor as 
well as a great architect;" and Niebuhr, in his Lectures, 
writes: "As the consideration of nature shows an inherent 
intelligence, which may also be conceived as coherent 
with nature, so does history, on a hundred occasions, show 
an intelligence which is distinct from nature, which con- 
ducts and determines those things which may seem to be 
accidental, and it is not true that the study of history 
weakens the belief in a Divine providence. History is, 
of all kinds of knowledge, the one which tends most de- 
cidedly to that belief." ( Vol. ^, ^j>. U6.) And Morell 
confirms this testimony when he says: "To the man who 
looks unbelievingly upon Divine providence the world's 
history is a problem that can never be solved." [Hist, of 
Phil., vol. a, p. 571.) These, then, are some of the 
names in the great army of simpletons, numskulls, and 
fanatics who, misled by their own shallowness and obtuse- 
ness, indulge in unphilosophical, irrational and nonsensical 
dreams of an ever-present Infinite Spirit, who " upholds 
all things by the word of His power," and who works in 
and through all things to the honor and glory of His name. 
But is it suggested that these are among the brightest 
names in the world of thought ? Is it so ? What then ? 



110 ISMS OLD AND ITEW. 

What is the real significance of this fact ? Does it not indi- 
cate that, measured by the capacity of the men, there must 
be less of absurdity and fatuity in the doctrines they avow 
than their critics are willing to acknowledge ? And may 
it not, also, indicate that the much-talked-of unreason, 
after all, is to be found entirely on the other side ? 

Let us see. 

The argument for God's existence is equally an argu- 
ment for His governance. If intuition discerns His being, 
it also perceives His activity. The primitive faiths of man- 
kind rather identified ^he Infinite Spirit with the universe 
than separated Him from its operations. They saw Him 
in the phenomena of nature as well as in the movements 
of history. He was over everything and in everything. 
Pantheism far more than Naturalism expresses the idea 
which filled the mind of the earliest races, and which im- 
parted to the most ancient religious systems their distinct- 
ive character. Doubtless among ignorant tribes the in- 
tuitive recognition of Providence was crude, and led to 
many superstitious and foolish thoughts and observances. 
And not a few people of narrow and limited culture err in 
the same direction still. As Shakspeare expresses it: 

" No natural exhalation in the sky, 
No scope of nature, no distemper'd day, 
No common wind, no customed event. 
But they will pluck away his natural cause 
And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs, 
Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven." 

But the strength of these superstitious feelings only goes 
to show how vigorous and clear the intuition is. We our- 
selves must be conscious of the fact that just in propor- 
tion as we realize distinctly the existence of the Almighty, 
we seek to draw nearer to Him, to commune with Him, 
and to commit to Him our ways. Has not this been your 
experience? If you have ever taken pains to analyze 



THE LAW AND LAAVGIVEK. Ill 

your idea of God, as the reality has emerged from the 
mists of vagueness you have instinctively bowed the knee 
before Him, and lifted up your heart in homage. It 
would seem, then, that the recognition of His sovereignty 
and supervision springs from something interwoven in the 
soul's texture, native to it and originating with it, and that, 
therefore, it is as worthy of confidence as is the testimony 
of that untaught voice within us which proclaims the cer- 
tainty of His being. 

But if we shift the ground of belief from what we feel 
Avithin to what we behold Avithout the result is the same. 
Discerning thought in the constitution of nature, we are 
led by a mental necessity to impute it to a Cause, and so 
to reach the conclusion that Infinite Intelligence is the 
only adequate explanation of creation. But is not 
thought as manifest in the operations of nature as in its 
construction ? We cannot have failed to observe their 
regularity, their order, and their apparent submission to 
the supremacy of law. Not perhaps the unvarying action 
of a steam engine, or the undiversified movement of a 
watch; for nature is not without deviation from the 
strict line of its march, and its regularity is not pre- 
cisely an endless, monotonous repetition. While aU or- 
ganizations correspond to certain types, no two of them 
are exactly alike; while each succeeding day and sea- 
son resemble the preceding, they are not in every re- 
spect the same; and though the earth from the begin- 
ning must have been subject to the physical laws which 
reign at present throughout the realm of matter, yet 
under them what transformations have taken place in the 
past, and probably what equally radical changes will take 
place in the future. We have in the administration of 
the universe diversity in unity, sameness and variation, 
retrogression and progress; in a word, everything to as- 
sure us that, while it is governed by law, it is law in the 



112 ISMS OLD AlTD KEW. 

hands of a free intelligent Being, who knows how to 
bring about modifications of old processes and even 
new eifects without transgressing its limits or disregard- 
ing its authority. 

The Christian poet asks 

" How shoukl matter execute a law, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a charge 
So vast in its demands, unless impelled 
To ceaseless action by some ceaseless Power, 
And under pressure of some conscious cause?" 

And Reid has well answered: "The laws of nature are the 
rules according to which the effects are produced, but 
there must be a cause which operates according to these 
rules. The rules of navigation never navigated a ship; 
the rules of architecture never built a house." [Essays, 
iii, 44-) Sir John Herschel, in his address to the British 
association (1845), drew a similar distinction. He re- 
minded his hearers that " a law may be a rule of action, 
but it is not an action;" . . . and that "we can never 
substitute the rule for the act." And Mr. Wallace, re- 
garded as a Darwinist before Darwin, from the consid- 
eration of many peculiar phenomena arrives at the same 
view : " Natural selection is only a means by which the 
Creator worked." . . . "A superior intelligence has 
guided the development of man in a definite direction, 
and for a special purpose, just as man guides the develop- 
ment of many animal and vegetable forms;" . . . and "it, 
therefore, implies that the great laws which govern the 
material universe were insufficient for his production." 
( Wallace, p. 360.) I have no doubt if common sense 
would have sanctioned a different conclusion our scientist 
would not have. been slow to embrace it; and the fact 
that he and others have been obliged to admit the impo- 
tence of mere law, strengthens my position that its reign, 
especially when taken in connection with the variety of 



MAN AND NATURE. 113 

operations that occur under it, of which man's develop- 
ment is a fail- illustration^ makes unanswerably for belief 
in God's imperial executive functions; or^ in other words, 
for the reality and completeness of His all- wise providence. 
Another line of thought, suggested by a remark of Mr. 
Wallace, can hardly fail to carry conviction to the mind 
of the most dubious. He alludes to the fact that man has 
guided the development of many animal and vegetable 
forms. This is indeed true, but probably very few pause 
to consider its significance. Horace Bushnel has said: 
*'Not all the winds, and storms, and earthquakes, and 
seas, and seasons of the w^orld have done so much as man 
to revolutionize the earth." He discriminates between 
humanity and nature. The latter he looks upon as having 
no power of improvement within itself, but as subject to 
the action of soul, "thoughtful soul," and as receiving 
from its touch new aspects and new features. This is the 
idea of the Psalmist: "Thou hast made him (man) to 
have dominion over the works of Thy hands. Thou hast 
put all things under his feet." That is, the creature is the 
viceroy of the Creator in the terrestrial world, and in 
miniature, and in some small degree figures to the under- 
standing how it is possible for his Sovereign to interfere 
in the course of things for special ends, such as the answer 
to prayer, without disregarding their constitution or dis- 
arranging their laws. We know that man has improved 
vegetation, has added freshness and beauty to the grass 
on the lawn, has enriched the fruits on the boughs of the 
orchard, and multiplied the colors and increased the fra- 
grance of plants. He has bettered soils, moderated the 
severity of the seasons, turned rivers, joined seas, and 
rendered tributary to his service those strange forces seen 
only when in operation, and only in useful and available 
operation through the influence of intelligence. But in 
all of these manifold endeavors and conquests has any law 
8 



114 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

been trifled with? Has the uniformity of nature been 
imperiled, or its integrity been jeopardized ? When man 
has flashed the electric spark, charged with his thought, 
through the heart of mountains like St. Gothard, and 
under the surging billows of oceans like the Atlantic; 
when he has drawn the lightning's shaft from out the 
stormy cloud, and dispersed its anger through the air, or 
buried its fury in the earth; when he has confronted the 
devastating lava flowing down the fissured sides of ancient 
volcanoes wreathed in sulphurous smoke, diverting its fiery 
tide into channels which his skill has dug, as was done by 
the Viceroy in 1794 to save Portici from Vesuvius; when 
he has grappled with the might of the pestilence, wrung 
from the bowels of the earth her hoarded treasures, or 
extracted from the plant the soothing anodyne, has he 
outraged nature, has he disregarded her mandates or 
deranged her courses? No; she is just as fair, as or- 
derly, as regular as ever. Effects have been produced 
which, left to herself, never would have been produced, 
and which are to be traced to the influence of intelli- 
gence, which is able to subject nature, without subverting 
her, to its ends and aims. 

And can man do so much and God do nothing? Is 
the mind of Deity less potent than the mind of humanity ? 
If the creature can find a way to communicate with his 
fellows across wastes of water and deserts of sand; if he 
by some simple anaesthetic can alleviate pain; if he by a 
thousand ways can avert calamities, or bring deliverance 
to those who are in danger, cannot the Creator, by means 
undiscoverable to us, by agencies and instrumentalities 
which lie beyond the range of our vision and the tests of 
our chemistry, hear the helpless when he cries, and open 
up unexpected avenues of escape ? If, in a word, man is 
himself providence to the lower world, what is to hinder 
God from being providence to the higher ? Surely nature 



NATURE AND REVELATION. 115 

must be as pliable to His touch and as plastic to His 
thought as it is to the being made in His image! Is He 
Himself never to exercise that power which He has in- 
trusted to His child ? And if that child, in its folly, can 
sway it without occasioning anarchy in the universe, can- 
not the Father, in His wisdom, do the same, and even 
more wonderfully and abundantly, without incurring the 
suspicion of inconsistency, fickleness, or lawlessless ? This 
we infer from man's relation to nature, and it is as though 
God had introduced it before our eyes, that we might 
thereby be assured that He Himself is thus allied to us, 
and that, in as real a sense, though perhaps more mys- 
teriously. He guides and controls all things according to 
the counsel of His own will. And as long as the simili- 
tude is perpetuated we shall believe that the Invisible One 
can hear our prayer, can come near to us in trial, can 
succor us in temptation, can comfort us in sorrow, — can 
and will; yea, will and does. 

The reasonableness and value of the system we are 
considering may also be tested in another manner. It 
claims that nature is all-sufficient for moral, reformatory, 
and religious inspiration and guidance, and that God will 
in no case interpose to supplement this first volume with 
a second. But is the first really sufficient ? When it has 
been relied on exclusively has it brought forth the fruits 
of righteousness? Has it promoted human brotherhood, 
renovated society, and multiplied altars of devotion? If 
it has not, — if in these particulars it has failed, — then 
the assumption of moral potency put forth in its behalf 
is baseless, and the inference that God will not shed addi- 
tional light on the path of His creatures is purely gratu- 
itous. We have not to seek far or long to discover that 
on these points Naturalism romances, and that this spirit- 
ual power is more imaginary than real. Undoubtedly the 
works of the Almighty influence wonderfully the human 



116 ISMS OLD Al^D NEW. 

mind. They exalt, overawe, delight and expand the soul; 
they sometimes hush to silence, or awaken praise, create 
ennobling images or kindle poetic fires; but it is exceed- 
ingly questionable whether they ever do more than render 
active what is already latent in the man. But be that as 
it may, though nature may quicken the muse of the poet 
and the genius of the artist, and although it may at times 
stimulate devotion, it is practically powerless to reclaim 
the wanderer from right, to purify the heart of the 
vicious, or to restore hope to the despairing. The sun 
that rolls resplendently in space, whose brightness is the 
shadow of its Creator's glory, subtle and penetrating 
though its light may be, invading chambers of densest 
ignorance and inundating dens of vice, never yet has 
flooded the benighted intellect with healing radiance or 
quickened into moral fruitfulness the barren conscience. 
The humblest roadside preacher in his poverty has made 
more converts to virtue's cause than has the king of day 
in all the affluence of his insufferable splendor. Ocean 
in its vastness, — a world of water rising in mists and 
ascending in waves to salute a world of fire, — awakens 
not with the thunder of its rolling billows the penitence 
of the prodigal; and neither does its majestic and appall- 
ing power rescue the dissolute and depraved. The sweet, 
saintly life of a Christian mother has done more to save 
the sea-boy from eternal ruin than all the mighty, head- 
strong waters that swirl in tempests or sleep in calms. 
They who dwell among the mountains, who inhabit sol- 
emn solitudes, who gaze on the untrodden snows of alti- 
tudes beyond their reach, and who are familiar with the 
antheming winds as they traverse the pine forests whose 
roots cling to inhospitable rocks, are no better, no purer, 
than they who tread the muddy streets and gaze continu- 
ally on the blank, monotonous houses of great cities. 
The poorest mission in the most squalid quarter of a 



MORAL IMPOTENCE OF NATURE. 117 

dense metropolis will do more real work in a year for 
virtue and piety than the beauty of Chamounix or the 
savage grandeur of the Engadine will accomplish in an 
age. Morally, the Sunday-school children of a country 
are worth more than all the stars that shine in heaven 
or all the flowers that gleam on earth, and in things per- 
taining to spiritual regeneration the Judsons and Cloughs 
are of more value than the Himalayas; and every Chris- 
tian laborer consecrating the meagerest talents to the 
Master's cause is of more importance than wooded dell, 
savage glen, majestic cataracts and cloud-crowned moun- 
tains. 

It will not be denied that men of genius, who have 
been most susceptible to nature's influences, have been 
among the most godless. Who is there among the poets 
that has surpassed Goethe in depth of sensibility, or who 
could more vividly portray every phase of beauty and sub- 
limity, and yet his life was far from saintly ? He trifled 
with female affections through many foul and filthy years; 
and philosopher as well as poet though he was, he restrained 
not the hot winds of passion from ravaging his soul like a 
Sirocco's blast. Your heroic Byron, whose majestic verse 
reveals a heart as impressionable to the loveliness of stream 
and bird and flower as Geneva's placid lake, which he de- 
scribes so tenderly, is to the luster of the stars, was a way- 
ward spirit, and continually gravitated downward toward 
the frail and sin-stained. Robert Burns, too, who could 
discern the grace and purity of the mountain daisy, and 
who in his poems could enshrine the stern grandeur of his 
Scotia's scenery, failed not to put in practice one part at 
least of his ribald song, "to riot all the night." Paint- 
ers, who are supposed to drink in inspiration from the 
Creator's works, and musicians, who feel their tender har- 
monies, have afforded in their dissolute conduct sad proof 
that there is an infinite gulf between aesthetical senti- 



118 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

merits and ethical principles. And even where nature has 
been idealized into a deity, or transformed into an altar, 
and where piety has sought to do it honor, as in the case 
of the Chaldeans and the Greeks, the worship has not 
been free from sensuality, or the worshipers from licen- 
tiousness. A fatality seems to attend every naturalistic 
system of religion. Whatever may be the explanation, 
whether it is to be accounted for by its utter inability to 
reach the conscience, or by some other and here nameless 
impotency, the fact still remains that it ever tends toward 
looseness in morals and weakness in virtue. Witness the 
truth of this statement in the lives of those who, in Eu- 
rope and America, have fallen under the influence of such 
writers as D'Holbach, and who, thrusting from them the 
teachings of Christianity, have come to regard man as the 
universal priest, and the world as a veil hiding from mor- 
tal eyes an Infinite Unknown. While some among them 
are undoubtedly men of purity and rectitude, the rank 
and file have little share in these high qualities. They are 
too frequently careless of moral obligation, and too indif- 
ferent to right for them to be classed with the pure and 
noble. While they talk much of nature, they are rarely 
found in communion with her; while they extol her, they 
do not desire her company. Not in cathedral forests will 
you find them, nor treading the solitudes of the temple- 
hills, pouring out their souls in the presence of the Un- 
seen, and seeking with trembling faith the Infinite One. 
No; their thoughts are not concerned with such sublime 
pursuits and such exalted themes. Generally they are 
found with agitators who would overthrow society, who 
would trample law and order under foot, and who would 
welcome bloody revolution in the interest of crazy 
schemes of progress. Not from the pure air or from the 
sublimities of creation do they expect to derive strength 
for manly duty and comfort for weary hearts, but rather 



nature's worshipers. 119 

from the wine-glass and the beer-barrel. They lounge in 
saloons, guzzle in concert-gardens, and beclouding their 
mental and moral faculties with the fumes of untold quan- 
tities of liquor, go forth to drunken slumber, or to moody 
discontent, and are ready for the heroic task, which they 
not infrequently perform, of shooting into crowds of help- 
less, unarmed people, or of brutally murdering defenseless 
women. 

It is a significant fact, not unworthy of note in this 
connection, that the wrathful and stormful aspects of 
nature, which sometimes overwhelm the human heart with 
terror, rarely, if ever, produce permanent spiritual results. 
Occasionally thay may impel toward a better and more 
religious life, but they invariably stop short of the sacred 
goal. They need to be supplemented by something else, 
something that will deepen the impression received, and 
carry it forward to an abiding moral transformation. Thus 
it was the gospel of Christ, not the tempest that alarmed 
Martin Luther in the forest, that effected the conversion 
of the monk, and prepared him to be a reformer. The 
earthquakes in New England, which startled so many 
people into a desire for union with the church, as was 
abundantly proven, failed to implant in the soul the prin- 
ciples of godliness and righteousness. An intelligent 
Scotchman related to me on one occasion what he had 
experienced when alone near the summit of the Rocky 
Mountains. He said that he was so oppressed with the 
grandeur of the scene that he wept, and found himself 
doing what for years before he had neglected — praying. 
Here was a hopeful case surely. After all, then, we have 
an instance of conversion through the ministry of nature. 
Not so fast. This man when narrating the circumstance 
to me treated it as a pleasantry, as an incident to be 
merry over, and interblended coarse expressions and oaths 
in his speech. Evidently the transient emotion had pro- 



120 ISMS OLD AND NEW, 

duced no lasting improvement. I remember once the 
crew and passengers of a ship, during an Atlantic hurri- 
cane which threatened destruction, becoming violently 
penitent and devout, and when the danger abated rapidly 
returning to their folly and their irreligion. I have seen 
a city stricken with Asiatic cholera draped in sadness, 
mourning over its wickedness, supplicating God with self- 
reproaches and with vows of self-amendment, and when 
the frost announced the return of a healthier season I 
have seen the people of that city as proud, oppressive and 
corrupt as they were before. A company of sailors related 
to my church the dealings of God with them which led 
them to desire baptism. Their ship had been caught in 
the whirl and might of a typhoon in the China Sea. 
They gave themselves up for lost. Grim darkness covered 
them, the wind howled round them, the seas swept over 
them, and prospect of deliverance there was none. ^^They 
were at their wits' end," and then called they upon God, 
and as they lifted their despairing eyes they saw through 
a sudden rent in the pall of death above them a bright 
star shining. They hailed it as a happy omen. It com- 
forted them in their distress, inspired them with courage, 
and helped them by its soothing influence to weather the 
terrific storm. If any set of men could have been made 
better by nature, surely these sailors ought to have been 
transformed into saints. But they were not; and never 
did they rise to the higher life until some young Christians 
boarded their vessel at the wharf and guided them to 
Jesus. In their case, as in many others, the humblest 
colporteur proved a mightier and more effective moral 
force than the sublimest typhoon. As I have reflected on 
such instances, the conviction has grown that the extir- 
pation of sin and the renewal of the heart in goodness 
require something more than glare of lightning, stroke of 
thunder, or fury of devastating tempest. 



THE N^EW THEOLOGY. 121 

Nay more, if we estimate this Ism by the ethical and 
religious principles which it necessitates, and which in its 
name are presented as the' theological doctrines of the 
material universe, we shall be persuaded that morally it is 
worthless. The first article of its creed declares that 
there" is no supreme God, at best only a supreme un- 
knowable Unknown, with whom it is impossible for us to 
hold communion, and who of course can take no possible 
interest in His creatures. Its second resolves the doctrine 
of providence into fate, and attributes the mysterious in- 
fluences that dispose us toward the right, or incline us 
toward the wrong, to physical sources. They are identi- 
fied with atmospheric changes, the moon's phases, the 
stars' motions, the earth's perihelion, the sun's periodic 
convulsions, with variations of the temperature, the scen- 
ery that surrounds us, the food we eat, and the fluids 
we drink. These teachings are suggested as worthy sub- 
stitutes for the doctrines of God and His government — 
how elevating ! As a third kind of article, we are assured 
that the Bible idea of moral liberty is a myth, and that we 
should believe in its stead that of mechanical or chemical 
necessity, and regard thought, opinion, emotion, desire, 
volition, as the result of changes in the tissues of the 
brain, or as determined solely by the weight and size of 
that remarkable organ. How reasonable ! Very ! On 
these exalted notions, however, Shakspeare, in his King 
Lear, has ventured to express the opinion — an opinion so 
dark and depreciatory that it must be attributed to the 
benighted condition of the unhappy age in which he lived: 
" This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we 
are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behav- 
iour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, moon, and 
stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heav- 
enly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by 
spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, 



122 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

by inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that 
we are evil, by a. divine thrusting on." Of course if the 
poet had only lived in these enlightened days he would 
have seen differently, and would have extolled what he 
has ridiculed. Unhappy poet ! blind to the most lumi- 
nous of doctrines ! ! Alas for dim-sighted genius ! ! ! 
Then, we are informed, fourthly, that man sprang from 
one-celled amoebae ancestors of the Laurentian period; 
that after developing into skullless vertebrates, such as 
the amphioxus, and proceeding upward through amphibian 
forms, he appeared among the mammals, and having for a 
season borne the simian image, emerged into the shape 
which now he wears. How ennobling ! Fifthly, it is af- 
firmed that sin is only disease, or better, a circuitous route 
to perfection; that moral qualities do not inhere in hu- 
man conduct; and that it is wrong to suppose that there 
is anything sacred in marriage, or anything heinous in 
infanticide. How liberal ! Then, by way of climax to 
this singular Confession of Faith, we are encouraged to 
believe that the universe is infinitely miserable, but that 
man inevitably shall attain to happiness in the rottenness 
and oblivion of the grave. How cheerful ! Yea, how de- 
lightful, charming, and edifying ! Perfectly splendid ! 
These are the principal dogmas and precepts of the New 
Theology. What an advance on the antiquated doctrines 
of Paul, and the narrow statutes of Moses. How exalted! 
Immeasurably beyond the Tridentine Decrees, or those 
other wretched decrees of Dort, or the melancholy articles 
of the Westminster divines ! Certainly, if they are not 
transcendently above every other confession, descendently 
they surpass them all. 

But let us see- whitherward these remarkable teach- 
ings tend. I must confess, if the only Almighty is blind 
force, if man is a creature of circumstances, if the only 
law to be obeyed is the irresistible, if the rule of mar- 



MORAL OUTCOME OP KATURALISM. 12B 

riage is affinity, and if the end of life is personal gratifi- 
cation, that I cannot see from whence we are to derive 
our inspiration to virtue and piety. Piety, purity — they 
wither under the blighting influence of such ideas. They 
crucify lofty feelings and noble aspirations, and can hardly 
fail to promote the growth of vice and crime. If man 
is but an advance on the brute he will probably be in- 
clined to rend and tear as the brute; and if marriage is 
destitute of the sacred element it will gradually pass into 
what Herbert Spencer calls *' Promiscuity," and Sir John 
Lubbock defines as "communal" wedlock; and if mater- 
nity is a curse which no divine law imposes, infanticide 
will inevitably become as common in America as in Tas- 
mania; and if wrong-doing is but an unavoidable accident, 
idlers, drunkards, and the whole canaille of devildom will 
feel that no other course is open to them but to follow 
their disordered appetites and turbulent passions. Surely 
this frightful and alarming tendency of principles pro- 
fessedly derived from nature by philosophical Naturalism 
proves conclusively that as a theology it is utterly inade- 
quate to conserve the moral and religious welfare of society. 
And in view of this utter break-down of its most pre- 
tentious and serious claims, are we not warranted in re- 
jecting the entire system? We feel assured that we are. 
How much more rational the belief that, beholding our 
helplessness, the loving Father should confer on us an 
adequate Revelation, that the Unseen should refuse to 
remain the Unknown, and the Inconceivable continue the 
Inaudible. " He who made the eye, shall He not see ? 
He who made the ear, shall He not hear ?" And He who 
made the tongue, shall He not speak? If he has found 
lips in the mute rocky ranges, breath in the whispering 
breezes, and a vocabulary in suns, stars, seas, solitary 
deserts, and crowded cities wherewith to proclaim His 
eternal power and Godhead, seeing our dire spiritual ne- 



124 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

cessities, it is reasonable to conclude that to meet them 
He will not despise our poor, stammering language, nor 
disdain to use it as the vehicle of His mighty thought. 
It is incredible that the speech-maker should be Himself 
the Speechless, or that the author of multiplied vocables 
should be unable to articulate His holy will. Wise men 
of all ages, such as Socrates, have expressed the convic- 
tion that a direct Revelation is among the most probable 
and possible, as it is among the most indispensable, of 
heaven's gifts. If it is said that this reasoning will carry 
us to the unorthodox conclusion that His communications 
cannot be restricted to the contents of one volume, I can 
only answer, so be it. I shall even then be only repeating 
the sentiment ascribed to Zuinglius by the author of 
Heathen Religions^ that "the Holy Ghost was not en- 
tirely excluded from the more worthy portion of the 
heathen world." But while I am prepared to accept the 
consequences of my argument, and to reverence the signs 
of God in any sacred book, there are adequate reasons for 
maintaining that the volume known among us as the 
Bible contains the completest, the most fully inspired, 
and the best authenticated revelation ever given to the 
race. All others are as stars in comparison with the 
sun, as the cold luster of the pole in comparison with the 
brilliancy of the tropics, as the opaque whiteness of the 
pearl in comparison with the transparent beauty of the 
diamond. Rousseau acknowledges its moral power; 
Goethe confesses its unparalleled spiritual excellence; 
Theodore Parker magnifies it as the purest fertilizing 
stream that ever flowed through our desert world; Hux- 
ley esteems it indispensable to sound ethical education, 
and Amberley extols it beyond any other work existing 
among men. From these considerations it is reasonable 
to conclude not only that Naturalism is untenable, but 
that He who " upholds all things by the word of His 



PLOTINUS. 125 

power," also has conferred on us a revelation to lighten 
our darkness, and that in its supreme and perfected form 
it is contained in the Holy Scriptures. 

Their light is needed in navigating the vague uncer- 
tainty called life; apart from their luster the universe 
is a dubious phantasmagoria, and aside from their spirit- 
ual vivifying warmth the world is as those hyperborean 
regions where winter is added to winter, where ice is piled 
on ice, where the sea is imprisoned in eternal repose, and 
where the congealed mass is swept by shivering winds. 
Without the Bible the soul remains doubt-riven, and ''at 
best but a troubled guest upon an earth of gloom." The 
study of nature imparts not moral strength, and the con- 
quest of nature brings neither peace nor joy. Could we 
penetrate the innermost laboratory, hidden in the abysmal 
depths of the unseen, and witness chemical combinations 
resulting in suns, stars and constellations, and could we dis- 
engage ourselves from old ideas and satisfy ourselves that 
toiling time, laborious law and moiling matter are suf- 
ficient to account for the origin and order of all things 
that make up this marvelous universe, we would turn 
from the great discovery saddened and dispirited, like 
children who, seeking a father, have stumbled on his 
grave, and like children conscious of their orphan state 
we would cry out in sharp agony of despair, God ! God ! 
God ! So unsubmergeable are our religious instincts, and 
so unquenchable our religious aspirations, that could 
we prove the unprovable assumptions of Naturalism we 
would revolt from the unwelcome demonstration, and in 
our wretchedness bewail the loss of confidence in that 
Book whose sublime revelations have filled our thoughts 
with Divine images and our lives with the consciousness 
of saintly fellowships. 

It is related of the great Plotinus that he sought in 
many directions for truth; that he communed with sci- 



126 ISMS OLD AND l^EW. 

ences and philosophies, climbed the heights of speculation 
and fathomed the depths of reflection, but received from 
all no satisfactory reply. He approached the verge of 
skepticism, and was on the point of embracing the cheer- 
less creed that there is nothing certain but uncertainty 
when he heard of a strange teacher in the city of Alex- 
andria. A man had appeared among the cultured people 
of that city who, though of humble rank and a porter 
by trade, had undertaken to lecture on philosophy, and to 
him Plontinus came. The young skeptic, to whom nature 
had been tongueless, sat at the feet of the earnest think- 
er, Ammonius the carrier, and from his lips received the 
message that opened to his mind the realities of truth. 
Plotinus represents many young men to whom these 
words will come. They have read themselves into a 
chaos of doubt; and they are half persuaded that they 
have been abandoned by their Creator to the mock- 
ing Titans of error. Why seek further? Hear this, ye 
young: a greater teacher than Ammonius is here. He 
once lived among men in lowly form, and He yet lives 
in the immortal revelations of this Sacred Book. Like 
the inquiring Alexandrian, humble your intellect and 
learn of Jesus, who spake as never man spake; sit at 
His feet; permit the supernatural to supplement and 
complete the natural, and then you shall go forth en- 
riched with truth, — knowing God, knowing self, know- 
ing, also, how God and self touch each other and come 
into sacred commerce, — and then shall you be able to 
brighten the pathway of others with the reflection of 
that light which fills your soul with peace and joy. 

"God's voice, not Nature's, — night and noon 
He sits upon the great white throne 
And listens for the creatures' praise. - 
What babble we of days and days ? 
The Dayspring He, whose days go on." 



PESSIMISM. 

"Now no chastening for tlie present seemetli to be joyous, but 
grievous ; nevertlieless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of 
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." 

Hebrews xii^ 11. 

*' Because the few with signal virtue crowned, 

The heights and pinnacles of human mind, 
Sadder and wearier than the rest are found, — 

Wish not thy soul less wise or less refined. 
True, that the clear delights that every day 

Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs; 
True, that though free from Passion's lawless sway, 

A loftier being brings severer cares ; 
Yet have they special pleasures, — even mirth, — 
By those undreamed of who have only trod 
Life's valley smooth ; and if the rolling earth 
To their nice ear have many a painful tone. 
They know man does not live by joy alone. 
But by the presence of the power of God." 

Lord HougMon. 

PAIN and anguish fill a large place in human life. 
Their harsh voices cannot be silenced, neither can 
the rattle of elegant carriages, nor rush and din of com- 
merce, nor the clamor of ambitious, eloquent tongues, 
drown the solemn pathos of their discourse. Their baleful 
presence stealthily glides everywhere, and everywhere their 
shadow falls. They walk unopposed through the ranks 
of watchful guards, and deliver to kings their sad messages, 
and they pass unhindered into humble, peaceful homes, 
and speak the awful word that withers their beauty and 
blights their peace. No life can build them out, no foot 
can speed fast enough to elude them, no hand can strike 

127 



128 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

vigorously enough to repel them, and no subtle skill can 
evade them, nor any bribe of affluence corrupt them. 
They are everywhere, they have all times; yea, they have 
all means at their disposal, for they can impart a scorpion's 
sting to our delights and poison-venom to our hopes. The 
house we build to shield us from the storm may but fur- 
nish fuel for the fire that shall consume our prosperity 
and rob us of our dear ones; the adornments which afford 
us harmless pleasure may but serve to supply a motive to 
the assassin's knife; the children we have reared with so 
much fondness, and on whose multiplying years we have 
looked with fond anticipation, may only prove a perennial 
affliction to our sanguine souls, and the high emprise, rich 
in promises, may be but the herald of death and desolation. 
So closely interwoven is suffering with all our movements, 
so strangely interblended with our felicity, so inseparable, 
apparently, from our gladdest and serenest hours, that 
every earnest soul has felt the truth of what Shelley 

wrote: 

" We look before and after, 
And pine for what is not, 
E'en our sincerest laughter 
With some pain is fraught, 
Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought." 

It ought not, therefore, to occasion us much surprise if 
many minds take on a despairing mood, and if many 
tongues adopt the language of despondency. So difficult 
is it for humanity at times to discern the silver lining in 
the cloud that overshadows, so hard is it to realize, under 
certain conditions, that the thick pillar which precedes us, 
as it did the Jews, is guiding to Canaan's promised land, 
that nothing is seen but the somber shadows of the savage 
wilderness through which our pathway lies. And when 
the shekinah hides the Christ of comfort from our longing 
eyes, it is hard, if not impossible, for us to recognize its 



HUMAI^ MISERY. 129 

brightness, or to perceive in it the symbol of Jehovah's 
presence. 

Sometimes an hour's grief makes us quite forget a life 
of gladness. We take our happiness unconcernedly, but 
we rage and storm against our miseries. The shortest 
night eclipses the radiance of the longest day, and one 
hour of storm is all-sufficient to drown the recollections of 
long, sweet years of calm. Ah me! that it should be so; 
that we should so chafe and fret, droop and sink when 
adversities sweep over us as to unhinge our reason and 
evoke our bitterest ingratitude. That they work in many 
souls such dire results witness the exaggerative views 
concerning earthly miseries which prevail in various quar- 
ters, leading to dreary pessimisms and snarling cynicisms, 
and which would crown man's life with the morose and 
sullen cypress. 

Pascal has said, with pathetic eloquence: "Man is so 
great that his grandeur appears from the knowledge of 
his own misery. A tree knows not that it is wretched. 
True, it is sad to know that w^e are miserable, but it is 
also a mark of greatness to be aware of this misery. Thus 
all the wretchedness of man proves his nobleness. It is 
the unhappiness of a great lord, the misery of a dethroned 
king." And yet, unless he understands the cause and the 
end of his dethronement, it were better for him to be un- 
conscious of his loss. That it is given him to realize the 
fact and the depth of his afflictions surely indicates that 
he is capable of ascertaining their meaning and of falling 
in with their design. If he is great enough to perceive 
their reality, it is only reasonable to believe that he is also 
great enough to so far comprehend their significance as to 
deal with them intelligently. Of this he has himself been 
profoundly persuaded; and hence, during all the centuries 
man has been looking through his tears on the problem of 
suffering, and with aching heart and weary brain he has 
9 



130 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

been painfully seeking its solution. And in this attitude 
his moral grandeur comes into a clearer light than it does 
when he is simply presented as gazing in mute, unques- 
tioning melancholy on that which he shrinks from and of 
which he cannot possibly be oblivious. 

The theory of Pessimism, snarled, croaked and moaned 
by a few elegiac, querimonious philosophers in response to 
the saddened "Wherefore?" of humanity, that misery is 
the natural, unavoidable and irremediable condition of the 
race, has never succeeded in satisfying the intellect or in 
pacifying the heart. It has failed to reconcile men to 
their trials as it has to qualify them to endure their sever- 
ity. As a system it is a slander on the goodness of Deity, 
accusing Him of malignancy or charging Him with impo- 
tency, and as an explanation it is simply an exaggeration 
of the mystery which it undertakes to unfold. To say, as 
it does, that the universe is "a gigantic blunder," "an 
escapade of the Absolute," or "immeasurable lusus na- 
turiBy'' and that happiness is only a fitful gleam of light 
to render the prevailing gloom more intense and unen- 
durable, or to intimate that the end of life is to go down 
into nothingness, is to asperse the character of God and 
to leave the question that perplexes untouched and unan- 
swered. The theory is irrational in its terms and paralyz- 
ing in its influence. It implies a Headless universe or a 
heartless Ruler; a reign of cruelty without motive and 
without advantage, and a creature helpless to resist and 
powerless to overcome the fiendish tyranny beneath which 
a merciless fate has placed him. 

Pessimism begins with the repudiation of the ojDti- 
mistic system advocated by Leibnitz in his Essai de 
Theodicee. It denies that the Creator had from a variety 
of possible worlds chosen to make this one as the best, 
but that He had made the worst, and that actually it is 
worse than none at all. Nevertheless, according to Yon 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MISERY. 131 

Hartmann, though the existing world is worse than none 
at all, still Leibnitz was correct in asserting that it is the 
best possible, for every possible world is necessarily a bad 
one. Yea, he argues that it would have been better if the 
world could have been worse than it is, for if it had been 
only slightly more wretched humanity before this would 
have taken its fate in its own hands, and by a supreme act 
of annihilation would have put an end to the tragedy. It 
is assumed that all existence is an evil, and that pleasure 
is negative while pain is absolutely positive. Schopen- 
hauer looks on what he calls "will" as the cause of all 
things and the source of universal misery. " Will " in his 
doctrine stands both for creation and Creatorship, only it 
is not to be identified with personal volition, but with an 
abstract, mysterious Infinity composed of numberless and 
limitless wills. He further declares that it is the nature 
of "will" to be restless, dissatisfied and corroding, that its 
greed is insatiable, and that, as a consequence, suffering- 
is unavoidable and inextinguishable. As long as will con- 
tinues to will, the weary round of disappointments must 
follow, for no conceivable object can yield more than mo- 
mentary enjojnnent, and therefore, until the will is made 
to cease willing, black -browed misery must reign. But 
the cessation of will means the cessation of existence, and 
only in such an amiable climax can Schopenhauer discern 
the true solution of the problem of evil. Von Hartmann 
substitutes for Schopenhauer's metaphysical fiction what 
he calls "The Unconscious," which is made up of infinite 
will and omniscience, and w^hich was harmless until it be- 
gan to create; but from the unfortunate hour when it first 
called matter into being the deplorable history of pain 
began. The fearful blunder of creation originated with 
an unexplainable schism in the Unconscious; Will broke 
away from its primitive harmony with unconscious Reason, 
and this wretched universe was the result. The Uncon- 



132 ISMS OLD Ai^D NEW. 

scious attained to the Conscious in man, and is now busy 
seeking by every means to return to its primal uncon- 
scious blessedness. This desired end, it is believed, will 
be consummated through the discovery of the utter empti- 
ness and hollow illusiveness of life, w^hich will decide men 
to cease caring for themselves and determine them no 
more to propagate their species, and which very likely 
will be carried into effect by a unanimous and simultane- 
ous act of self-destruction. Thus the mischievous misad- 
venture of the Creative Power will be effaced and can- 
celed in the nothingness of annihilation. But even this 
poor hope is questioned by Herr Bahnsen, a Pessimist 
more radical and thorough-going than Von Hartmann, 
who insists that as the human race by annihilating itself 
could hardly annihilate the power which originated all 
things, the world and existence must continue irrational 
and miserable throughout eternity. Delightful logic! 

Tf, as is implied throughout these speculations, the uni- 
verse is one vast tragic theater, the object of which is no- 
happiness to any one, conducted by a Superhuman Energy 
resembling a designing mind in everything but conscious- 
ness, it follows that life is an unqualified curse. And this 
inference is elaborated with a dreary enthusiasm, and a 
pertinacious devotion to details, which is edifying if not 
convincing. " Human life," says Schopenhauer, " oscil- 
lates between pain and ennui"; and having expressed 
the thought that these states are its ultimate elements, he 
adds, " driven by the fear of ennui, men and women rush 
into society, thinking to gain a fleeting pleasure by escap- 
ing from themselves. But in vain; their inseparable foe 
renews his torments only too surely." In the same direc- 
tion he also writes: "The history of every life is a history 
of suffering, for the course of life is generally but a series 
of greater or less misfortunes." — "The real matter of the 
world-famed monologue in Hamlet may be thus summed 



WORTHLESSN^ESS OF EXISTENCE. 133 

up: Our condition is so wretched that utter annihilation 
would be decidedly preferable." "If, finally, all the ter- 
rible pains and sorrows to which his life is ever exposed 
could be brought before the eyes of each, he would be 
seized with horror; and if the most obstinate of optimists 
were led through the hospitals, lazarettos, and surgical 
operation rooms; through the prisons, torture-chambers, 
and slaveholds; over the fields of battle and places of 
execution; if then, those dark abodes of misery, where it 
creeps out of the view of cold curiosity, were opened to 
him; and finally, a sight were afforded him of the starva- 
tion of some Ugolino — he would surely at last perceive 
what kind of meilleur des mondes possible this is." And 
to these gloomy outlines he adds a few dark shadows, 
which impart a lurid completeness to the picture: "The 
present is forever becoming the past; the future is quite 
uncertain, and ever short. Thus is man's life a constant 
lapse of the present into the dead past, a constant death." 
— " Further, it is plain that our bodily life is but a con- 
tinually checked process of dying, an ever postponed 
death." "At length death must conquer; for by the very 
fact of birth we are made over to him, and he is only 
playing awhile with his prey before swallowing it." It 
is in vain that we suggest to Schopenhauer and Von 
Hartmann that possibly when the ignorance and impiety 
of the present are overcome, the future may be prolific in 
happiness; for they meet all such encouraging hopes with 
the forlorn assertion " that misery grows with conscious- 
ness." Hence they remind us that "the more intelligent 
the man is the more completely does he attain the full 
quantum of misery; he in whom genius lives suffers most 
of all"; and more than this, adds Hartmann, "with all our 
boasted progress the evils of existence are just as great 
and just as hopeless as they were centuries ago." Thus 
all expectation of improvement in the condition of hu- 



134 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

manity is utterly baseless; and we are shut up either to 
asceticism for the extinction of the will, which is the root 
of all our trouble, as commended by Schopenhauer in 
theory, though unapplied by him in practice; or to utter 
worldliness, that the illusions of life may be speedily 
demonstrated, a course seriously advocated by Von Hart- 
mann, and by him consistently pursued. 

While this morbid creed is remarkable, the favor with 
which it is being received is even more so. Duhring 
claims that it is " the most sober philosophy of the cen- 
tury"; and Dr. McCosh, in the Princeton Itevieio, calls 
attention to the fact that " Of late years German students 
have been wandering after Schopenhauer and Hartmann; 
and American and British youths, seeing the crowd, have 
joined them, and been gazing with them." But beyond 
the student classes the popularity of Pessimism in some 
of its forms is startling. Many persons in every commu- 
nity who do not subscribe to all of its positions unreserv- 
edly, yet sympathize with its estimate of life and its views 
of death. Thousands who have never heard the name of 
the system, and to whom it is meaningless, have already 
accepted its dreariest expectations and its darkest consola- 
tions. Grief, trial, disappointment, raises the question in 
minds inaccessible to Von Hartmann's speculations as to 
whether, after all, life can be called a blessing. The 
ambiguity of the term "happiness," as it is commonly 
used, and the inadequacy of multiplied pleasures, how- 
ever pure and refined the pleasures may be, to answer to 
any definition, have prepared the way for the blank de- 
nial which Pessimists pronounce. It is welcomed as on 
the whole more rational than any other answer, if not as 
gratifying. Moreover, the dissolute orders of society hail 
it with delight. In Paris it is currently reported that 
books upon this subject are being widely read by the 
demireps and scoundrels, who find in them some solace- 



VON HARTMANN". 135 

ment for the virtue and integrity they have bartered for 
fleshly joys. Such works, therefore, have a large audi- 
ence, and I am inclined to the opinion that it will increase 
before it diminishes. Not improbably literary men will 
be tempted by the avidity with which the more senti- 
mental aspects of this Ism are received by the people, to 
multiply literature on the subject, and thus to disseminate 
even more widely than at present these doleful, lugu- 
brious, sunless, and tenebrious views. Most likely the 
night will thicken before the daybreak comes, and society 
return to a kind of philosophic chaos before God shall 
once more say, "Let there be light." Such being the 
melancholy outlook, it is surely the duty of earnest in- 
quirers to do all in their power to mitigate, if they cannot 
arrest, the impending gloom; and this can only be done 
by challenging the Pessimistic theory, and suggesting in 
its stead a more rational and satisfactory explanation of 
human suffering. 

That the doctrine of the Unconscious is a metaphysical 
figment, which hardly deserves the attention of serious 
criticism, no one who is seeking clear views and not mere 
entertainment from dialectical gymnastics will for a mo- 
ment question. It is difficult to believe that any person 
in sober earnestness can expect such a tissue of absurd 
speculations as Von Hartmann has put forth in the name 
of philosophy to commend themselves to common sense. 
When that Infinite Indefiniteness which is substituted for 
the Almighty is represented as divided, the Will breaking 
away from the unconscious Reason, and the unconscious 
Reason then seeking to overtake and annihilate the per- 
nicious Will, into what incoherencies and contradictions 
of thought are we thrown ! How can the Will, apart from 
conscious intelligence, create, and how can intelligence, 
deprived of will, determine ? To will anything implies a 
conscious conception of the thing to be willed, and will 



136 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

can no more will without intelligence than intelligence 
can will without will. But according to Von Hartmann 
we are to credit that the universe sprang from the inde- 
pendent activity of a will without plan and without 
knowledge, and that now an intelligence, which was once 
unconscious, is seeking to counteract the maleficent blun- 
dering of this will, although by the terms of the preceding 
proposition not a vestige of volitional energy is left to it 
wherewith to execute its benevolent intentions. Such an 
astounding cosmogony destroys itself. Its terms are ir- 
reconcilable with each other, and contrary to the funda- 
mental principles of thought. Assuredly neither this 
involved hypothesis nor that of Schopenhauer possesses 
any advantages over the Theism of Scripture; neither is 
as intelligible nor as rational, and neither is as satisfactory 
to the heart nor as useful to the life. We may, therefore, 
dismiss the cloudy metaphysics of Pessimism as fanciful 
and profitless, and direct our attention to its more obvioUs 
teachings and tendencies. That these are equally un- 
worthy of confidence may be inferred from the peculiar 
circumstances which have always attended the origin and 
progress of the theory. Never, as far as I can ascertain 
from its history, has it appeared among a people in the 
more youthful and natural stages of national development. 
It has only risen, like a grim shadow or unearthly monster, 
in after years, when civilization has introduced artificial 
methods of estimating things, or general corruption has 
seriously impaired the tone of buoyancy and hope. When 
religion has been asphyxied by impurities, when manli- 
ness has been atrophied by defective intellectual nourish- 
ment, and tenderest affections have been gangrened by 
lascivious indulgence and moral filthiness, then has this 
hideous Philosophical Nightmare disturbed the repose of 
much afflicted peoples. Among the Hindus it followed on 
the decline of the healthier Vedic-Faith, and was simply 



OEIGIN'OF PESSIMISM. 137 

the expression of the wretched degradation into which 
entire tribes were falling. Brahmanism was not the first 
religion of the East. The first, if we may judge from the 
remnants of its literature which have descended to us, was 
jocund, elastic, taking bright views of life and destiny, 
and wholly free from Pessimistic taints. But wars, ambi- 
tions, the growth of caste, and the multiplication of other 
evils, undermined its strength, and in its place arose the 
gigantic and gloomy worship which for centuries oppressed 
India. Even this system was not without some advan- 
tages, but they quickly disappeared, and in a time of 
densest darkness the reformation known as Buddhism was 
inaugurated. This took its color from the age in which it 
originated, and while it corrected some abuses and pro- 
tested against more, it taught that evil is the very essence 
of existence, that even in the lives of the greatest gods 
misery is feared, and that all worlds have been made in 
vain and are doomed to wretchedness. Among the Greeks 
and Romans this wormwood-faith never prevailed; and 
even Diogenes went not as far in cynicism as Gautama. 
These nations were not sufficiently morbid for it to take 
root in their intellectual soil. Too cheerful, too active, 
too discerning for such an insalubrious creed to suggest 
itself to them, it was reserved for the grave-minded, grim- 
brooding and tobacco-beclouded Germans to revive and 
naturalize it among Europeans. And this was not effected 
in recent prosperous, united times; but when disastrous 
wars, social depressions and commercial stagnations had 
prostrated the nation, had darkened its mind, and crushed 
its heart, Schopenhauer wrote of the great earth-sorrow. 
If it shall be thought singular that it should retain its 
vitality in these days of " unexampled prosperity," let it 
not be forgotten that we have drifted into materialism and 
secularism, and that in a different way, but just as truly, 
our century is as diseased as the last, and that to the un- 



138 ISMS OLD AN"D ITEW. 

wholesome condition of both must we ascribe the beginning 
and the advancement of Pessimistic philosophy. Now, 
from these facts its seems legitimate to conclude that there 
must be something abnormal in a theory which is thus 
identified with abnormal conditions of society. As we 
have seen, it flourishes only in a sickly, pestilential social 
atmosphere, and it is no more than reasonable to suspect 
that it simply exhales the poison of its surroundings, and 
is, therefore, a death-bearing tree, under whose shadow 
no mind should be tempted to seek repose. 

It should also be remembered that it is natural for man, 
whatever he may profess, to act on the belief that life is 
not only desirable, but is really worth taking no small de- 
gree of trouble to enjoy. This was evidently the rule of 
Schopenhauer's conduct, however it may have run con- 
trary to his creed. He was no ascetic, and some of his 
most ardent admirers approximate more closely to his ap- 
preciation of the good things to be found in this world 
than to his intellectual ability. Further, it should not be 
overlooked that many who charge themselves with the 
task of exposing the hollowness of existing institutions, 
and who point out most distinctly the unutterable woes of 
the race, are not Pessimists, and have no sympathy with 
their lugubrious estimates, but, like Rousseau and Byron, 
believe in the attainability of happiness, and, like Carlyle 
and Heine, acknowledge a supreme, satisfying Something 
somewhere. They who are most extreme in their denun- 
ciation of shams are most fully persuaded of an ultimate 
outcome in goodness and blessedness. Why, then, accept 
the ungladdening theory of life, painfully elaborated by 
a few moaning philosophers as an impartial statement, 
and why should we attach so much importance to their 
tearful array of horrors, when, on the whole, human con- 
sciousness testifies to a clear excess of enjoyment over 
suffering ? 



EXHAUSTLESS CONSOLATIONS. 139 

An apostle speaks of our afflictions as '' light " in com- 
parison with the " exceeding- weight of glory " that awaits 
us. But, though the sufferings of the present are not 
worthy to be compared with the blessedness in reserve for 
us, we are not to conclude that here and now the contrast 
is not as marked. Inspiration assures us that " God's 
mercies are new every morning and fresh every evening," 
and David reminds his soul, in language we may all adopt, 
that He redeems its life from destruction, crowns it with 
loving-kindness, and satisfies it with good things, so that 
its youth is renewed like the eagle's. According to the 
entire tenor of Holy Writ, the pleasures of existence far 
outweigh its miseries. The consciousness of being, the 
sense of personal freedom, and the realization of individual 
power over nature, all yield the most enduring satisfaction. 
Placed in a world where we have dominion over the works 
of God's hands, we find them serving us and constantly 
ministering to our enjoyment. The sun not only lights 
our way by day, but suffuses our thoughts with images of 
splendor. The stars not only shed their radiance on our 
darkness, but penetrate our minds with subduing and 
sacred influences. 

Every beautiful object in the universe, be it above, 
around or within us, has "a perpetual joy-producing 
power." The unobtrusive majesty of the heavens, the 
stern grandeur of the hills, the mobile loveliness, culmi- 
nating at times into sublimity, of the ocean, the modest 
gorgeousness of the flowers, whose varied hues remind us 
of the words of Ruskin< " Of all God's gifts to the sight 
of man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the most sol- 
emn;" the somber trees, glittering rainbows, golden sun- 
sets, and the endless forms that diversify and glorify the 
world, appeal to our deepest emotions, and create the im- 
pression that Spirit is manifested in all, and is seeking to 
charm us from our griefs, and exalt us above our sorrows: 



140 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

" There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes 

By the deep sea, and music in its roar." 

Compared with these sources of enjoyment, how mea- 
ger, trivial and contemptible our crosses, burdens and 
disappointments appear. These we have always and ever 
accessible, the others occasionally and temporarily. But 
am I reminded that a speck in the eye will obliterate the 
beauty of a universe, and a defect in the ear will drown 
its harmony, and a grief-drop in the heart submerge the 
ocean of consolation that gleams around it calmly? True; 
but we should not overlook the fact that the misery is 
incomparably less in magnitude than these measureless 
and fathomless springs of delight, and that the latter offers 
more than a compensation for the former. 

But in addition to the blessedness which God has com- 
mitted to nature for the comfort of His creatures, we 
should realize that He has enriched our life by the gift of 
His Son our Lord. Christ is called the " Consolation of 
Israel," and consolation He is to all mankind. I fear we do 
not consider the magnitude of this gift as we should, and 
I am very sure that no language can do it justice. There 
is not only that which is amazing in this descent of God 
from Himself, but there is in it something assuring and 
comforting as well. The Incarnation attests the interest 
of the Almiglity in the race, indicates that its loathsome- 
ness cannot repel His love, or its waywardness alienate 
His heart. It was the apprehensibn of this fact that pro- 
duced so mighty an impression on the ancient world. As 
Macaulay says, " It was before the Deity embodied in a 
human form, walking among men, partaking of their 
infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their 
graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, 
that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of 



THE INCARNATION. 141 

the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces 
of the lictor, and the swords of thirty legions, were hum- 
bled in the dust." The people of all classes and condi- 
tions realized that however fallen and degraded they were, 
God had not abandoned them, was not ashamed to wear 
their likeness, or unwilling to stoop to their level, that 
they might be lifted up nearer to His. This conviction 
brought with it a sense of personal elevation, and a desire, 
more or less pronounced, to do something worthy this 
compassionate condescension. Thus ought it always to 
affect us. But whether it does or not, it yet remains true 
that the Incarnation articulates many precious assurances. 
It removes all suspicion of a malignant purpose in crea- 
tion, or of an evil will potent to create, and of an uncon- 
scious reason impotent to restrain. When feeling friend- 
less and forsaken, it assures us that God is mindful. When 
sadly oppressed with a sense of personal unworthiness, it 
reminds us of the value the Almighty attaches to humani- 
ty; when disheartened by the repeated losses of fortune 
and friends, it reveals inexhaustible affluence in the Su- 
preme; and when death invades, and things of earth are 
fading from the sight, and its charms have perished from 
desire, the Incarnation proclaims anew the amazing union 
of God with man, pledging alike his immortality and 
felicity. 

These sources of pleasure would hardly be available 
were it not for another, — one that lies within the reach of 
all and which imparts to everything a charm, even glori- 
fying the storm-cloud with the rainbow's brilliant hues. 
You have frequently heard the preacher in rugged phrase 
urge the people listening to his words to "repent and be 
converted." Possibly you have been disposed to sneer at 
his earnest exhortation, and to hold in derision the duty 
he enjoined. And yet the change expressed by the now 
familiar term '' conversion " is of all others the most pre- 



142 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

cious for this life, whatever may be its relation to the life 
hereafter. When the Scriptures describe it they employ 
the most radical figures of speech to convey an adequate 
idea of its grandeur. They call it a "new birth," a "resur- 
rection from the dead," and they liken it to the opening 
of blind eyes, and to freedom from a prison-house. These 
words imply a total transformation of the man. His re- 
stored sight enables him to see evil in its true light, and 
he shrinks from it and saves himself from many sorrows; 
his soul, emancipated from the grave of dull materialism, 
rises to the consciousness of a spiritual universe and 
clearly discerns that "life is more than meat and the 
body than raiment," and being freed from bondage to 
tyrant passion, he gladly accepts the yoke of Christ and 
rests securely in His grace. It is this change that enables 
us to appreciate and appropriate the beauties and joys 
that nature, and religion, too, lavish so abundantly upon 
us. Thomas Carlyle, albeit not a Christian after the 
straitest sort, and somewhat unorthodox in his speech 
and thought, yet in his Reminiscences can recall a day, 
forever notable in his calendar, when he was transformed 
from his old self into something higher. In referring to 
this period, he writes: "This year I found that I had con- 
quered all my skepticisms, agonizing doubtings, fearful 
wrestling with the foul and vile and soul-murdering mud- 
gods of my epoch; had escaped as from a worse than Tar- 
tarus, with all its Phlegethons and Stygian quagmires, and 
was emerging free in spirit into the eternal blue of ether, 
where, blessed be heaven, I have for the spiritual part ever 
since lived. . . . What my pious joy and gratitude then 
was let the pious soul figure. In a fine and veritable 
sense, I, poor, obscure, without outlook, almost without 
worldly hope, had become independent of the world. 
What was death itself, from the world, to what I had 
come through ? I understood well what the old Christian 



carlyle's conversion. 143 

people meant by * conversion,' by God's infinite mercy to 
them." He adds: "For a number of years I had ... a 
constant inward happiness that was quite royal and su- 
preme, in which all temporal aid was transient and insig- 
nificant, and which essentially remains with me still, 
tliough far oftener eclipsed and lying deeper down than 
then." In almost identical terms have all the saints, — 
the Pauls, the Augustines, the Bunyans, the Newtons, — 
recorded the marvelous dealings of God with them; and 
similar the experience of every man who yearns for knowl- 
edge of a higher world than this poor, noisy, muddy one 
of siglit and sense. Think not, then, lightly of this gra- 
cious change, but, inspired by the words of the gruff- 
grim cynic, seek that spirit which will make God's benefi- 
cence clear and dear to you forever. Not alone, however, 
should the Divine provisions for our happiness by their 
magnitude be measured; they should as well be estimated 
by their multiplicity. They are manifold, reaching in par- 
ticular to every relation and condition of life; so numer- 
ous are they that they cannot be counted up in order or 
followed in their bearings. As the universe in vastness, 
they are also like the universe in endless variety and com- 
pleteness. Not a sorrow, not a burden, not a temptation, 
not a bereavement, not a disappointment, not a care, not 
a groan or tear, but has its antidote in God's rich and in- 
exhaustible resources, which are available for human com- 
fort. You cannot imagine a state of evil, of grief how- 
ever deep, of wretchedness however profound, but the 
Almighty has anticipated. He has given us exceeding 
great and precious promises, and with the promises the 
more precious realities, and by these we may judge how 
completely he has provided against the ills from which we 
suffer, though we never may be able to explore their deep 
and loving wealth of meaning. 

But while these manifold sources of happiness may be 



144 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

admitted, there yet confronts us the huge problem, not 
without difficulties, perhaps not wholly without inexplical- 
ities, of human suffering. What can be said about it? 
What can be offered by way of solution ? Evidently noth- 
ing on the part of Pessimism, for the repeated picturings 
of its intensity, in which it indulges, do not possess the 
first element of elucidation. The Bible may not be able to 
remove all mystery, but its account of the matter is cer- 
tainly less demonstrably false and less palpably fabulous. 

According to its teachings God is love; and all the 
processes of severity in His government are in harmony 
with this spirit. He is seeking the well-being of his crea- 
tures, and as they are moral agents, and as they are in 
sin, suffering becomes an essential condition of their 
progress. Unquestionably it is represented by the Sacred 
Book as retributive, but it is also described as being dis- 
ciplinary and corrective. While it is in some sense the 
result of transgression, and while in some cases it simply 
serves to mark the heinousness of iniquity, and to brand 
it with its true character in this world and in the world to 
come, it is broadly designed, in this life at least, to re- 
strain, to rebuke, to rectify, and to reclaim. It is a 
measure of reform, a means of development, a refining 
and elevating force in the education of man. This is 
especially the view of Paul in the chapter from which the 
text has been chosen. He compares the dealings of God 
with us to those of an earthly father with his children. 
Chastening he alludes to as a sign of sonship; and argues 
that it is inflicted not for the pleasure of the parent but 
for the profit of the child. He declares that it is a proof 
of love in Him who orders it, should be recognized as 
such by him who receives it, and should be endured and 
valued on account of "the peaceable fruit of righteous- 
ness " which it is fitted to produce. 

This explanation is, in my opinion, worthy the most 



SL^FFERING IN ART. 145 

serious consideration of every tried and tired searcher for 
truth, bringing to the mind content and to the soul com- 
fort. 

It is deserving of note that this view does not seek to 
lessen or to hide the grievousness of affliction. Truly is 
it said by the apostle in the text, that " no chastening for 
the present seemeth to be joyous." He does not mis- 
represent its real character. It is in itself an evil, what- 
ever good may flow from it; it is a curse, although it may 
yield a blessing. Man cannot bring himself to desire it, 
and can hardly refrain from shrinking at its approach. It 
were unnatural for him to covet adversity, disease, and 
disaster; or to welcome among his household treasures 
the destroyer death. Who is there that does not instinct- 
ively try to avert calamity and to evade correction ? The 
child does not anxiously seek the rod, though healing 
may result from its stripes; and neither do we pine for 
chastisement, though assured that it is administered for 
our profit. Poets, philosophers, painters have rightly in- 
terpreted this feeling when in their works they have 
sought to express the human fear of suffering. The 
dread of it, the aversion to it which is common to us all, 
they reproduce in their representations of its character. 
We see in their conceptions, whether wrought out by pen 
or chisel, that which gives pain, not pleasure, or at the 
most only painful pleasure, which repels while it fasci- 
nates. The lamentations of antiquity over the misery of 
life do not enliven our spirits or gladden our heart. 
When Homer plaintively declares that no creatures are 
more miserable than men; when Pindar represents them 
as a shadowy dream, or Sophocles compares them to a 
vapor's shade; or when Pliny says that many have 
thought it the best lot never to have been born, we are 
not thrilled with delight at our condition, nor find our- 
selves inclined to rejoice. Rather, if we are endowed 
10 



146 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

with a contemplative mind, we are filled with melancholy 
and overcome by sadness. However heroic Prometheus 
may awaken in us a sense of awe and admiration, we have 
no yearnings for his rock and vulture; and however the 
Laocoon may imjDress us with its sublimity, we would not 
willingly take the place of the tall, massive, central figure, 
around which is twined the serpent's slimy folds, and 
whose face reveals the agony of despair. Niobe in tears 
awakens no desire for partnership in her grief; and what- 
ever other forms ancient or modern art has given to suf- 
fering, they elicit from us no longing to realize them in 
our own experience. Upon them all we read the verifica- 
tion of the apostolic statement: "Now no chastening for 
the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous." 

That this is so should not occasion us anxiety or dis- 
tress. I suppose that there are those among my readers 
who regard their lack of avidity to receive afflictions as a 
sign of unpardonable weakness, or of absolute degener- 
acy. Because Paul once said that he gloried in tribula- 
tions, they may have formed the impression that they, 
too, should contemplate them with delight. But if they 
will only recall the entire passage where this expres- 
sion occurs, they will perceive that it was uttered in view 
of the patience and the hope which sufferings are calcu- 
lated to produce, and not because of anything pleasurable 
in the sufferings themselves. He gloried in the one for 
the sake of the other; but he was far from contradicting 
in his letter to the Romans the sentiment of our text, 
which he addressed to the Hebrews. That we feel the 
sharpness of God's rod, and cry out under the weight of 
His hand, are not evidences of inbred corruption, but of 
our human sensibility, without which the design of chas- 
tisement would fail. God means us to be pained when 
He sends painful afflictions; He means us to weep when 
He touches the springs of sorrow, and he means us to 



UNWISE COMFORTERS. 147 

moan when the plowshare goes through our heart. If we 
did not feel the miseries we experience, if we would just 
as soon be freighted with them as with joys, if our na- 
tures were indifferent to either; that is, if we w^ere imper- 
vious to impressions, then the possibility of their influenc- 
ing us for good would cease. This sensitiveness, which 
morbid souls interpret as something inconsistent with 
piety, is the condition on which the beneficent action of 
chastisement depends, just as ductability and pliability 
are required in the material on which the plastic hand 
would exercise its skill. We do not plow adamant. " The 
hard rock that breaks the share will not nourish the seed, 
but the soft earth that yields to the sharp iron will bear 
the harvest;" and the brittle stone that shivers beneath the 
sculptor's chisel grows never into form of beauty, while 
the white marble, which resists and yet succumbs, grace- 
fully receives the fairest ideal that ever haunted poet's 
soul. 

Let us not, then, mourn because we shrink from evil; 
for that shrinking proves that the evil will not be in vain 
when it comes. Neither let us despond if, while the 
storms rage and beat upon us, we fail to discern their 
justice and beneficence. When driven by their fury it is 
natural that we should be blinded, confused, and startled; 
and it is equally natural that we should be incapable of 
candid thought and reasonable judgment. Yet I have 
known persons, when the whirlwind had smitten a fellow- 
being to the ground and left him mourning in dire dis- 
tress, wonder w^hy he was not comforted by their pious 
platitudes and sustained by their wearisome conventional- 
isms. Yea, they have even affected solicitude for the 
spiritual condition of him w^ho, when crushed, maddened, 
and lacerated, could not reply in set phrases to their jar- 
gon about resignation and submission. Believe me, it is 
no time for words when the wounds are fresh and bleed- 



148 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

ing; no time for homilies when the lightning's shaft has 
smitten and the man lies stunned and stricken. Then let 
the comforter be silent; let him sustain by his presence, 
not by his preaching; by his sympathetic silence, not by 
his speech. "Afterward," when the storm is spent, he may 
venture to open his mouth; "afterward," when the morn 
has dawned, he may seek "to justify the ways of God to 
man;" for "afterward" the sufferer will be prepared to 
hear, and " afterward " the sufferer himself may be able to 
extract sweetness from bitterness, music from mourning, 
songs from sorrow, and " the peaceable fruit of righteous- 
ness " from the root of wretchedness and woe. 

The ultimate profitableness of chastisement is the next 
aspect of the subject suggested by the text. Paul assures 
us that it is not necessarily barren of results, but that it 
" yieldeth " ; — " tribulation worketh patience ; and patience, 
experience; and experience, hope;" and "these light af- 
flictions which endure but for a moment shall work in us 
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Not 
in vain need our sufferings be; not in vain need our tears 
be shed; but from them we may reap immortal blessedness 
and imperishable fruit. 

It is a fact that strikingly points in the direction of 
this conclusion, that the most powerful and progressive 
nations are those which have been called to pass through 
the severest trials and the most painful convulsions. The 
life of Greece grew and became strong by these means; 
the Romans advanced to their commanding position along 
the highway of war and revolution, while England has 
secured and preserved her greatness at the cost of ease 
and quiet. She has lived in a hurricane for a thousand 
years; she has. been devastated by civil wars; she has 
been prostrated by commercial panics, and has rarely en- 
joyed a season of absolute repose. The same is true of 
America, only in a less degree. The miseries incidental 



SUFFERIN"GS OF GENIUS. 149 

to the revolution seemed to develop sterling virtues; the 
war for the Union elevated the tone of our national char- 
acter; and the recent prostration of our business interests, 
that entailed untold sufferings on the people, failed not to 
yield us enduring profit. And what is thus manifest in 
the history of nations is equally apparent in that of in- 
dividuals. The men whom w^e count great were not un- 
acquainted with privation, grief, and agony. They grew 
in volcanic soil; they were fostered by the foehn, and were 
nourished by the desert. Genius has ever had to be cru- 
cified that it might rise from the dead on the third day; 
virtue has ever had to wear the crown of thorns for it to 
inherit the diadem of praise. The mystery of grace has 
been constantly reexhibited in the lives of poets, artists, 
and reformers. Rich in ideas, they have had to become 
poor in fortune that we, through their poverty, might be 
made rich. I do not now recall any great production or 
any sublime endeavor that was not preceded by suffering 
of some kind. Pascal sorrowed deeply before he thought 
sweetly; and he thought painfully before he wrote sym- 
pathetically. Milton had tasted of misfortune's cup and 
had braved the storms of four and fifty years before he 
could sing of Paradise and of man's woeful fall. Poor 
Jean Paul but expresses his own experience when he says 
that the bird sings sweeter whose cage has been darkened, 
for his song broke not on human ear until he had strug- 
gled long with the thick, chill shadows of poverty. Car- 
lyle was a dreary dyspeptic before he accomplished any- 
thing great in literature; and but for Robert Hall's spinal 
malady the world might never have been thrilled by his 
matchless eloquence. A gentle, humble poet once de- 
clared that his soul was in his poems; but it is only after 
familiarity with anguish that the soul seems capable of 
conceiving ideals above mediocrity and worthy of being- 
actualized either in stately verse or in gleaming mar- 



150 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

ble. Perhaps this accounts for the fact, to which Stol- 
berg calls attention, that the faces of the immortal an- 
tique statues of gods and men wear an expression of se- 
vere and serious melancholy. This also may explain the 
pensive sadness that marks the loftier and deeper poetry. 
The anguish that disciplines mind and heart, and of which 
is born their most magnificent creations, necessarily leaves 
trace of its sighs and tears on page and canvas and on 
sculptured stone. And perhaps it is owing to the unen- 
durableness of this inward agony that so many of earth's 
gifted ones speedily succumb to death after they have 
charmed the world with the plaintive melody of their 
sweetness. The fires that quicken their powers consume 
their life; the conflicts that develop their strength under- 
mine their vigor, and the sorrowful strife that violently 
rouses slumbering greatness, and that achieves at a stroke 
undying fame, shortens the number of their days. 

" The mightiest tone that music knows 

But breaks the harp-string with the sound ; 
And genius still, the more it glows, 
But wastes the lamp whose life bestows 
The light it sheds around." 

If chastisement is thus efficacious in awakening genius, 
it is natural to conclude that it is potent in perfecting 
character. According to the testimony of Paul in this 
chapter, it is sent upon us that we may be made partakers 
of God's holiness. As common opaque substances crystal- 
lize through the action of fire into sapphires, emeralds, 
and other precious stones, so the carnal man, through the 
power of suffering, may be transformed into the spiritual. 
As I have seen the dull, leaden clouds and the chilly rains 
at evening time transmuted by the setting sun into golden 
mountains and into mists of fire, and seen every water-line 
of the shower changed into an effulgent thread connecting 
earth with heaven, so have I known the declining orb of 



THE SCHOOL OF SORROW. 151 

prosperity to surcharge the gloomy thoughts and driving 
passions that darkened the firmament of the soul with a 
strange light, — a light that converted night into day and 
scowling deformities into shapes of beauty. Of Christ 
it is written that He was ''made perfect through suffer- 
ing ; " and, while the declaration may specifically refer 
to His official qualification as mediator, it can hardly be 
supposed to include nothing else. Remember it is also 
said : " For in that He Himself hath suffered, being 
tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted;" 
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Here His ability 
to rescue us from our trials is attributed to His own ex- 
perience in trial, which is but another way of saying that 
He attained this height gradually and through the instru- 
mentality of painful vicissitudes. We are told that " He 
grew in wisdom and in knowledge," and the school where- 
in much of it was acquired was evidently the school of 
suffering. And there also must the disciple learn; and 
many who have returned from its solemn courts have given 
abundant proofs that they have not submitted to its dis- 
cipline in vain. 

Among the personal advantages which they seem to 
derive from its severe regime may be mentioned increased 
self-reliance, patience, sympathy, charity, and devoutness. 
These precious graces have frequently glorified and 
crowned the characters of those who have been "tempest- 
tossed and afflicted." Their dreary failures and disas- 
ters, which leave them friendless in the hour of need, 
which alienate from them human support, and which con- 
vince them of the selfishness of their fellows, throw them 
back on their own energies and the helpfulness of God. 
Whatever reserve force slumbers in them is quickened, 
stimulated, and brought into action by their trial, and they 



152 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

become conscious of a new manhood born of the tempest. 
In their solitude they look to the Invisible, and their 
spiritual sight, clarified by their tears, discerns in Him 
unchanging Fatherhood. By the hands of faith, made 
sensitive through pain, they feel for Him in the darkness, 
and discover that "He is not far from every one of us." 
Losing man, they find God ; ceasing to lean on their 
fellow-beings, they come to realize how to rest in self, sus- 
tained by that arm whose strength is measureless. The dis- 
appointments experienced, and the evanescence of earthly 
possessions and of earthly joys rudely forced upon them 
by consuming blows, refine their natures of worldly am- 
bitions and desires, and gradually enable them to bear 
without murmuring the misfortunes of their lot. They 
are brought to value time less, and eternity more ; to 
give place to more of heaven in their hearts, and to less 
of earth. And as their sorrows multiply their patience 
grows, until, with sweet, unruffled quiet, they can con- 
front the ills of life, and, though inwardly wincing, can 
calmly pursue their way to the restful grave, while their 
old, harsh voices are softly cadenced into sweetest melody 
like the faint notes of an angel's whispered song. As 
patience deepens, charity and sympathy increase. They 
draw near to others, pitying their woes and forgetting 
their sad follies. Their own weaknesses make them con- 
siderate of their fellow-beings, and their own loneliness 
makes them kind and thoughtful. Griefs melt their stub- 
born hearts to tenderness, failures humble their pride to 
lowliness, afilictions and bereavements subdue their bitter 
discontents, and fill them with sweet harmonies of love 
and peace. Schiller sublimely sings: 

"If, in the woes of actual human life, — 
If tliou could' St see the serpent strife 

Which the Greeli art has made divine in stone, 
Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek, 



THE FAILURE OF AFFLICTION'S. 153 

Note every paug, and hearken every shriek, 

Of some despairing, lost Laocoou, 
The human nature would thyself subdue, 

To share the human woe before thine eye ; — 
Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true 

To man's great sympathy." 

And they who have learned in the school of anguish, 
and of whose graces I have spoken, have attained to the 
poet's ideal, and measurably to the image of Him who 
"was made perfect through suffering." 

But not all who pass its portals are thus enriched. 
That they are I have not presumed to intimate; such a 
thing I dare not here affirm. The text does not teach it, 
the Bible does not warrant it. Chastisement does not 
necessarily "yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness." 
It is conditioned; it is promised only to those who are 
"exercised" by their trials and calamities. Many a time 
have men and women been made harder, colder, unkinder, 
and more irreligious by the bitterness of their lot. They 
have been taught, but they w-ould not learn; they have 
been bereaved, but they grew no better; they have been 
deprived of their health, friends and fortune, but they 
were drawn no nearer heaven. Ah me! it is a sad sight 
to see one who has lost this world and is careless of the 
other, who has no hope here and none in the hereafter; 
who after all the scourgings he has endured has gained no 
wisdom and no profit. Sad indeed to think that he may 
so have perverted the meaning of God's discipline as to 
see in it only unjust harshness and cruelty, and hence to 
have grown under it cynical, morose, discontented and 
defiant. Such people I have met with. Complaining, 
murmuring, fretful; their hearts clothed with blackness 
and their faces with anger, they would not believe any- 
thing good of God, but, rushing into Pessimistic folly, 
have cherished their maddening thoughts of injury to the 



154 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

last. They have preferred to think of Him as a tyrant, 
and themselves as outraged victims, whose only recourse 
is moody melancholy. But how vain and foolish in this 
manner to rebel against suffering. Every creature has 
to meet it, has to bear it, and all our defiant talk is 
of no avail. If we will, we can pluck a fragrant flower 
from the thorn-bush; if we so determine, we can obtain 
the fairest colors from the mire; but if we are lacerated to 
death by the sharp spines of the one, or are buried in the 
ooze of the other, we have only ourselves to blame. Who- 
soever is rightly "exercised" by his afflictions will find 
them working together for good; whosoever is not, will 
find them working together for evil. What I suppose the 
apostle means by this expression is simply that the wise 
man will lay his trials soberly and seriously to heart, will 
seek to trace their origin and discover their design. He 
will meditate upon them, not in the proud spirit of him 
who disdains correction and feels that he is above chastise- 
ment. He will ponder them, not in the mood of one 
whose vanity has received a shock, and whose self-esteem 
has been mortified. No, not like these; for these are they 
who stumble on in arrogant folly to the end. 

He who is "exercised" aright will realize that he has 
much to learn, and that God alone can teach. Conscious 
of his sonship, he will feel that he has a right to enjoy his 
Father's discipline and care, and that God would be deal- 
ing with him as an alien were He to forego its rigid admin- 
istration. He desires the interest of Divinity in his wel- 
fare, though it may lead to bitter experiences, and he calls 
upon Him to deal with him as a child lest he should prove 
an outcast. Believing in the Father's love and wisdom, 
he is assured that no unnecessary stroke will fall, and no 
useless or unendurable loss be inflicted. When the dark- 
ness thickens, when misery increases, when sun, moon and 
stars fail from his little heaven of earthly joy, he will 



SANCTIFIED SUFFERING. 155 

meekly bow beneath the rod, or draw closer to the hand 
that wields it, and will look up into his Father's face to 
discern the meaning of the scourge. And when by faith 
he sees that the Father's face is sadder than his own poor 
human heart, he will cease from all repinings, and will put 
away everything that grieves a love so tender and severe. 
It is this spirit that converts afflictions into blessings, 
and it is this spirit that perceives the reason why our life 
is beset by ills, and is burdened with unnumbered cares. 
When it is fostered ghastly Pessimism will cease to haunt, 
and a healthier philosophy of the evil in the earth prevail. 
Cultivate it, one and all; cultivate it as you would taste 
some drops of happiness in this weary world, and cultivate 
it as you would carry with you a nature refined from sin 
to that world where the ministry of chastisement is un- 
known. And when the gates of this school of suffering 
forever close in death, may the portals of heaven open to 
your rejoicing souls, and there the peaceable fruit of 
righteousness eternally be yours. 



BUDDHISM. 

" He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that 
light." John i. 8. 

" The Scripture of the Saviour of the World, 
Lord Buddha, — Prince Siddirtha styled on earth, — 
In earth and heavens and hells incomparable, 
All-honored, Wisest, Best, most Pitiful ; 
The Teacher of Nirvana and the law." 

Edwin Arnold. 

JOHN was not the only herald of the light. Others 
before him were as the gray of morning to the rising 
of the king of day. In other lands, and in times remote, 
prophets and reformers, some of whom were even looked 
upon as saviors, had appeared, preparing the thought of 
the world, both by their doctrines and their lives, for the 
approach of Him who should be alike its Teacher and its 
Redeemer. Such were Confucius, Lao-tse, Zarathustra, 
and, perhaps beyond all others, that personage now be- 
coming widely known through the poem of Edwin Arnold, 
entitled The Light of Asia, — Gautama Buddha. 

During the past few years western nations have be- 
come profoundly interested in the religions of ancient 
India. There is in them so much that is giantesque, mys- 
tical and majestic that they fascinate as well as inform 
the European and American mind. Especially are Chris- 
tian scholars drawn to them, because of the parallelism 
they furnish to some of the great truths taught in the 
Bible, and which seem to indicate a common Aryan origin, 
and to point to a primeval unity of faith. An additional 
value is also being attached to them, as they afford a scale 
of measurement by which the character of Jesus Christ 

150 



THE MAKY SAVIORS. 157 

and the dignity of His mission can be graduated. You 
are doubtless aware of the fact that modern infidel writers 
and speakers are accustomed to group in one class the 
founders of all religions. They represent them as putting 
forth the same claims, as doing substantially the same 
work, as pursuing practically the same career, and as be- 
ing entitled to about the same respect. In their artificial 
category they include our Savior. Their avowed design is 
to create the impression that, ranking with a definite order 
of men, He is worthy of no higher homage than they. 
Taking, for instance, the life of Buddha, they paint in 
vivid colors his self-abnegation, his temptations, his ex- 
alted ethics, the sufferings he endured, the confidence he 
inspired, the worship he received, and the superstitious 
myths to which he gave rise, and they argue from analogy 
that if such a life is explicable without recourse to the 
supernatural, that of Jesus Christ can be accounted for 
without its aid. To not a few this reasoning is conclusive; 
and if the followers of Christ were not as familiar with the 
literature of the subject as their adversaries, not to say 
more so, they themselves might begin to question the 
soundness of their faith. But possessing this literature, 
and indeed having themselves done much toward its 
formation; having such commentaries, translations and 
expositions as are presented in the works of Burnouf, 
Koeppen, Weber, Bigandet, St. Hilaire, Spence Hardy, 
Dr. Field, Tiele, Max Mliller and S. Johnson, not over- 
looking the smaller and more modest contributions of 
Rhys Davids and Edward Clodd, they perceive that the 
claims of Jesus cannot be disposed of in this summary 
manner. "Than Buddha," writes St. Hilaire, "there is, 
with the sole exception of the Christ, no purer nor more 
touching figure among the founders of religions. His life 
is without blemish; he is the finished model of the hero- 
ism, the self-renunciation, the love, the sweetness he com- 



158 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

mands." The justice of this high tribute Christians are 
not inclined to question; but having before them the 
books that are authoritative on the subject, they insist 
upon the magnitude of the " exception," and point out, 
what their antagonists fail to recognize, that the contrasts 
between the purest and noblest religious reformer of an- 
tiquity and Jesus Christ are more numerous and radical 
than the comparisons. Any conclusion, therefore, that 
does not take into consideration this fact they hold to be 
entirely unreliable and unsatisfactory. 

The poem of Arnold has suggested to me a special 
study in this direction. While he draws no inferences 
unfavorable to orthodox conceptions of Christ, nor indeed 
alludes to Him at all, but writes from the standpoint of a 
Buddhist who had never heard that name, his very reti- 
cence, combined with the spirit of the poem as a whole, is 
liable to be misconstrued by the reader, and to leave the 
impression that its author regards his hero as hardly infe- 
rior to any other spiritual leader known to history. I do 
not say that this thought was in his mind when he wrote, 
but it certainly comes to us as we read. But whether the 
thought ever occurred to Mr. Arnold or not, it may tend 
to counteract whatever subtle influence his book may exert 
in the direction of infidelity, to place Him who is called 
"The Light of the World" by the side of him who is 
termed "The Light of Asia;" and unless I widely err, 
such apposition will assure the most wavering faith that 
" a greater than Buddha is here." 

The Veda, a name signifying " knowing," or "wisdom," 
the sacred song of the Aryas who were scattered along 
the banks of the Indus, is a collection of about a thousand 
hymns ['-'Mantras,''^ or "mind-born"), composed by vari- 
ous Rishis, and dating back to a venerable antiquity. 
Johnson, in his work on Oriental Religions (Trtibner's 
edition), to which I am indebted for various facts and 



THE KIG-VEDA. 159 

for several quotations which appear in this discourse, re- 
gards this sacred book, in some of its parts at least, as 
three thousand years old, and as expressing the Hindu 
faith of "still earlier times." Max Mliller, whose Sanskrit 
Literature and Chips have been of the highest value to 
me and have been freely used in this study, claims that 
its earlier portions cannot be assigned " a date more 
recent than 1300 to 1500 before our era." The Veda has 
been called "the oldest of the Bibles," and it has been 
termed " historical " on account of the realism of the pic- 
ture it gives of the Aryas after their descent into India. 
From it, therefore, may be gained a very clear idea of the 
earliest manifestation of the religious sentiment. These 
primitive worshipers seem to have recognized life as a 
desirable possession, to have been continually influenced 
by implicit trust in the Unseen, and by childlike awe of its 
inscrutable power; to have regarded men as equal, and 
between whom the discrimination of caste should not be 
tolerated; to have never countenanced the horrid practice 
of burning wives w^ith their dead husbands, and never to 
have built temples, venerated idols, honored priesthoods, 
or to have admitted human sacrifices in their religious 
rites, no explicit mention being made of such bloody offer- 
ings in the Rig -Veda. They adored the Light, beholding 
in its manifold manifestations, from the spark that expires 
on the hearth to the sun that flashes in the heavens, "an 
all-productive cosmic energy." According to Muir's trans- 
lation, the worshiper sang: "Arise, the breath of our life 
has come! The darkness has fled. Light advances, path- 
way of the sun! It is Dawn that brings consciousness to 
men; she arouses the living, each to his own work; she 
quickens the dead. Bright leader of pure voices, she 
opens all doors; makes manifest the treasures; receives 
the praises of men. Night and day follow each other and 
efface each other as they traverse the heavens, kindred to 



160 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

one another forever. The path of the sisters is unending, 
commanded by the gods. Of one purpose, they strive not, 
they rest not; of one will, though unlike. They who first 
beheld the Dawn have passed away. Now it is we who 
behold her; and they who shall behold her in after- times 
are coming also. Mother of the gods. Eye of the earth. 
Light of the sacrificed, for us also shine!" These are 
beautiful lines, and equally beautiful and radiant are the 
deities who are interwoven with the mystic conception 
which underlies them, — Ushas, the morning; Sarama, the 
dawn; Savitri, the Sun; and Agni, the fire, who is spoken 
of as the child of the two pieces of wood rubbed together, 
and as the herdsman's friend and protector. And yet 
Miiller finds in the Veda a Monotheism which precedes its 
Polytheism, " a remembrance of One God, breaking through 
the mists of idolatrous phraseology." In the tenth book 
we have the declaration: " Wise poets make the Beautiful- 
winged, though He is one, manifold by words;" and the 
desire to express this intuitive sense of unity is brought 
out in such passages as these: "Among you, O gods, 
there is none that is small, none that is young; you are all 
great indeed;" "Thou, Agni, art Indra, art Vishnu, art 
Brahmanaspati; " "That which is One the wise call many 
ways. They call it Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, the winged 
heavenly Garutmat." And Johnson, who regards the Rig- 
Veda as " the potentiality of all religions," as " the pro- 
phetic star-dust of historic systems," says that in it "there 
are hints of a Father of all the gods, Dyaushpitar; of a 
Lord of Creation, Prajapati; of a generator and lord of 
all Prayer, Brahmanaspati." " Indra contains all the 
gods, as the felloe of a wheel surrounds the spokes." The 
Pantheistic idea reveals itself evidently in these ever- 
changing forms of Deity, though it is modified by the 
personality implied in the hymns and prayers, and by the 
views which are incidentally expressed regarding man's 



ORIGIN- OF BRAHMANISM. 161 

immortality. For, as Johnson writes, quoting from the 
Veda: "Death was Yama's kindly messenger, 'to bring 
them (men) to the homes he had gone before to prej^are 
for them, and which could not be taken from them.' It 
was far in Varuna's world of perfect and undying light, in 
the 'third heaven,' in the very 'sanctuary of the sky, and 
of the great waters,' and in the bosom of the Highest 
Gods. That which men desire is the attainment of good 
in the world, where they may behold their parents and 
abide free from infirmities, ' where the One Being dwells 
beyond the stars.' " And hence the impressive Vedic hymn 
still in use at Hindu funerals, given by Clodd: 

" Forth from about thee thus I build away the ground ; 
As I lay down this clod may I receive no harm ; 
This pillar may the Fathers here maintain for thee ; 
May Yama there provide for thee a dwelling." 

The Rig -Veda was followed by three other books, 
known as the Sama-Veda, the Yajur-Veda and the 
Atharva-Veda, and they make up the four parts of the 
Hindu Scriptures. These additional books show consider- 
able, though gradual, departure from the primitive and 
simple beliefs of the first, and around all grew up a body 
of literature devoted to exposition, ritual and theology, 
which pretty thoroughly obscured them. This period of 
development may very properly be designated the era of 
corruption, and it is identical with the rise and progress 
of Brahmanism. It is impossible to fix with any degree 
of accuracy the date of this movement, but for our pur- 
poses we may accept the opinion of various scholars that 
it could not have begun much later than the eighth cen- 
tury B.C. Originally the title "Brahman" simply meant 
a singer of songs, but in the course of time it came to 
denote a religious officer, a member of the sacerdotal 
caste. I suppose the transition occurred something in 
this way: Memorizing the ^ Vedic hymns, and chanting 
11 



162 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

them in public worship, they doubtless acquired influence, 
and gradually came to be invested with a distinctively 
religious character. Finding themselves honored on ac- 
count of their service, a little ambition mixed with cun- 
ning would easily accomplish the rest. Flattering by 
turns the ruler and the ruled, slowly and covertly push- 
ing their claims to consideration, they could hardly fail 
to capture the dignity which assumption and arrogance 
aspired to possess. With their establishment in power, 
strange doctrines, degrading distinctions, and novel rites 
made their appearance. The caste system was inaugu- 
rated. No longer were men equal, but divided by sharp, 
impassable barriers. They were distinguished into Brah- 
mans, or the learned; Rajanyas, or the princes and war- 
riors; Vaisyas, or the commonalty, and the Sudras, or 
slaves, this latter class being doomed to a life of the 
deepest misery. Then came fully developed Pantheism 
and clearly defined transmigration. The doctrine entirely 
unknown to the oldest Vedic books, that the soul of the 
imperfect must be born again, in the form of a jDlant, ani- 
mal, or man, until the highest stages of self-renunciation 
and freedom from everything material have been reached, 
and then sink and disappear in the soul of the universe, 
was openly advocated and implicitly believed. The Brah- 
mans also taught that the complete extinction of the sev- 
eral appetites, and the abstraction of the mind from exter- 
nal objects, were necessary to prejDare the mind for this 
hoped-for absorption in the Universal One. Moreover, 
they introduced childish mysticism, narrow formalism, de- 
basing superstitions, unnatural and arbitrary requirements 
and cruel and bloody rites and sacrifices, and to complete 
their malignant work they elaborated a metaphysical the- 
ology, and founded a hierarchy whose very shadow was an 
unmitigated curse to untold millions. Thus they corrupt- 
ed the primitive religion of India; influenced it for evil 



BIRTH OF BUDDHA. 163 

just as Romanism in a subsequent age degraded Christi- 
anity, misinterpreting the Scriptures, perverting its doc- 
trines, and ingrafting on its simple worship the most 
abominable observances. ( Vide Tide's Ancient JReligions, 
Triibner's edition.) 

It was when this apostasy had attained its greatest 
power, when the old childlike gladness of the people had 
been turned into sorrow, when existence itself had come 
to be regarded as a curse, that Siddartha, of the family of 
Gautama, appeared on earth. 

*'A11 honored, wisest, best, most pitiful. 
The teacher of Nirvana and the law." 

Various opinions prevail in the East and among West- 
ern scholars regarding the date of his birth, many favor- 
ing 623 B.C., while Koeppen, and with him others, place 
his death from 480 B.C. to 460, and his birth some sixty or 
eighty years previous. The Thibetans differ among them- 
selves very widely, referring his death to various periods, 
ranging from 2422 b.c, to 546. The Chinese and Japan- 
ese are agreed on the tenth century, while the Singhalese 
are confident that he appeared in the sixth. Mr. Arnold 
adopts 620 b.c. as the time of his nativity, which event 
he localizes on the borders of Nepaul. His father was 
King Suddhodana, and his m.other Queen Maya, and they 
reigned in Kapilavastu. Their son, Siddartha, while dis- 
tinguished preeminently as Buddha, was not the only 
being to whom that sacred name was applied. The title 
itself, derived from "budh," to know, a term in Hindu 
philosophy synonymous with "mind," signifies "the en- 
lightened one," and if tradition may be believed was 
borne by others before him and will be borne by others in 
the future. Among the peoples of the Himalayas the 
theory prevailed that for millions of years each age had 
received a Buddha to dissipate its darkness. Thus Kas- 
yapa preceded Gautama, and Maitreya is to follow him. 



164 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

" Fahian reports three " of a date earlier than that as- 
signed to Mr. Arnold's hero, and "describes a tower in 
Oude where the relics of one of them were preserved," 
and consequently the exalted personage whose life is re- 
corded in the poem was but one of a distinguished line 
of sacred men who have appeared to reveal the way of 
salvation to the race. 

The legends represent Gautc.ma, after thousands of 
preparatory births, deciding to leave the deities with 
whom he was associating, and to be born once more into 
the world. 

" Yea ! " spake He ; " now I go to help the World 
This last of many times ; for birth and death 
End hence for me and those who learn my law. 
I will go down among the Sakyas." 

He chooses his parents, a certain king and queen of 
great dignity and piety. When the natal hour arrived 
strange signs announce the advent of a Buddha. 

" The queen shall bear a boy, a holy child, 
Of wondrous wisdom, profiting all flesh, 
Who shall deliver men from ignorance, 
Or rule the world, if he will deign to rule." 

"A gray-haired saint, Asita," hears the Devas singing 
songs, and, Simeon-like, speaks of the infant in the follow- 
ing mystic and prophetic terms: 

" O babe ! I worship ! Thou art He ! 
I see the rosy light, the foot-sole marks. 
The soft, curled tendril of the Swastika, 
The sacred primal signs thirty and two, 
The eighty lesser tokens. Thou art Buddh, 
And thou wilt preach the law and save all flesh 
Who learn the law, though I shall never hear, 
Dying too soon, who lately longed to die ; 
Howbeit I have seen thee." 

He addresses the queen, and having told her that " she 



BUDDHA'S YOUTH. 165 

has grown too sacred for more woe," after seven days he 
promises she shall "painless attain the close of pain." 

" Which fell; for on the seventh evening 
Queen Maya smiling slept and waked no more, 
Passing content to Trayastrinshas-Heaven, 
Where countless Devas worship her and wait 
Attendant on that radiant motherhead." 

The childhood and youth of Siddartha were distin- 
guished by unusual precociousness. He excels his teach- 
ers in learning, perplexes theili by his wisdom, and yet 
preserves his modesty of manner. His chief instructor 
was overwhelmed at his miraculous knowledge. 

" But Viswamitra heard it on his face, 
Prostrate before the boy ; ' For thou,' he cried, 
' x\rt teacher of thy teachers, — thou, not I, 
Art Guru. Oh, I worship thee, sweet prince ! 
That comest to my school only to show 
Thou knowest all without the books, and know'st 
Fair reverence besides.' " 

He likewise excels in feats of noble horsemanship, 
and in other manly arts, and, indeed, proves himself to 
be as gallant a knight as he was a consummate scholar. 
But his heart, though strong, was not insensible to com- 
passion, and he begins his works of mercy by rescuing 
a wounded swan from the arrow of his cousin that had 
"killed the god-like speed which throbbed in this white 
wing." Up to this time the poor bird's grief was the 
only grief that he had seen; but visiting with his father 
many of the fairest spots in the country, his keen eye de- 
tected the conflict and the sorrow that was half concealed 
beneath the attractive show. 

" The Prince Siddartha sighed. ' Is this,' he said, 
' That happy earth they brought me forth to see ? 
How salt with sweat the peasant's bread ! how hard 
The oxen's service ! in the brake how fierce 
The war of weak and strong! i' th' air what plots! 



166 ISMS OLD Al^D NEW. 

No refuge e'en in water. Go aside 

A space and let me muse on what ye show.' 

So saying, the good Lord Buddha seated him 

Under a jambu tree, with ankles crossed, — 

As holy statues sit, — and first began 

To meditate this deep disease of life. 

What its far source and whence its remedy." 

But the King was not pleased with these musings, and 
was not at all satisfied at the prospect of his son treading 
the lowly path of self-denying pains; and, therefore, hav- 
ing advised with his ministers, he determined to marry 
him to some worthy maiden as speedily as possible. His 
plans in this particular were successful. Siddartha at first 
sight falls in love with the beautiful Yas6dhara, and after- 
ward he confesses that during a previous life on the earth 
he had met with and loved her, and that this affection 
would be eternal: 

" Lo! as hid seed shoots after rainless years. 
So good and evil, pains and pleasures, hates 
And loves, and all dead deeds, come forth again 
Bearing bright leaves or dark, sweet fruit or sour 
Thus I was he and she Yasodhara; 
And while the wheel of birth and death turns round, 
That which hath been must be between us two." 

After the wedding the king settles his son in a mag- 
nificent palace, in the description of which the poetic 
genius of Mr. Arnold asserts itself, and seeks to absorb 
his mind in pleasure. But after awhile he grows weary 
of dancing girls, and marbles, and pearls, and desires to 
see the world. His father gives his permission, but 
directs that the city and country be radiantly adorned, 
and that the blind and maimed, the sick and feeble, be 
kept indoors. But his precautions were all in vain, for 
while his son was rejoicing over the artificial signs of the 
world's happiness, 



THE WORLD'S GRIEF. 167 

" Slow tottering from the hovel where he hid, 
Crept forth a wretch in rags, haggard and foul, 
An old, old man, whose shrivelled skin, sun-tanned 
Clung like a beast's hide to his fleshless bones. 
Bent was his back with load of many days, 
His eyepits red with rust of ancient tears. 
His dim orbs blear with rheum, his toothless jaws 
Wagging with palsy and the fright to see 
So many and such joy. One skinny hand 
Clutched a worn staff to prop his quavering limbs, 
And one was pressed upon the ridge of ribs 
Whence came in gasps the heavy, painful breath. 
'Alms!' moaned he, 'give, good people! for I die 
To-morrow or the next day.' " 

This miserable creature excited Siddartha's pity, and led 
him to make inquiries, the results of which were not con- 
ducive to his peace of mind. He returns to his palace, 
but he is restless. Dreams haunt him, and the impression 
deepens that he is destined to aid the suffering race. He 
thinks continually " how love might save its sweetness 
from the slayer. Time." He goes forth again and beholds 
the terrible evils of society, the sufferings of the world, 
" the vastness of the agony of earth and the vainness of 
its joys." He is appalled, affrighted. To him the gods 
seem weak, as they do not save when sad lips cry: 

" Oh ! suffering world, 
Oh ! known and unknown of my common flesh, 
Caught in this common net of death and woe. 
And life which binds to both ! I see, I feel 
The vastness of the agony of earth. 
The vainness of its joys, the mockery 
Of all its best, the anguish of its worst; 
Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age. 
And love in loss, and life in hateful death. 
And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke 
]\Ien to their wheel again to whirl the round 
Of false delights and woes that are not false. 
* * * The veil is rent 



168 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

Which blinded me ! I am as all these men 
Who ciy upon their gods and are not heard 
Or are not heeded — yet there must be aid ! 
For them and me and all there must be help ! 
* * * I would not let one cry 

When I could save ! How can it be that Br ahm 
Would make a world and keep it miserable, 
Since, if all powerful, he leaves it so, 
He is not good, and if not powerful, 
He is not God ?" 

Henceforward his palace is a prison to him, its pleas- 
ures weary him, and at last he determines to abandon all 
and seek the way by which he can save mankind. 

" Oh, summoning stars, I come ! Oh, mournful earth ! 
For thee and thine I lay aside my youth, 
My throne, my joys, my golden days, my nights, 
My happy palace — and thine arms, sweet Queen ! 
Harder to put aside than all the rest ! 
Yet thee, too, I shall save, saving this earth ; 
And that which stirs within thy tender womb, 
My child, the hidden blossom of our loves, 
Whom if I wait to bless my mind will fail. 
Wife ! child ! father ! and people ! ye must share 
A little while the anguish of this hour 
That light may break and all flesh learn the Law." 

An affecting description is given of his parting from 
his beloved Yasodhara, of the disgust Avhich he experi- 
ences at the sight of the sleeping dancing girls, and of 
his ride into the night. The poet represents him as say- 
ing to his horse: 

" Be still. 

White Kantaka ! be still, and bear me now 

The farthest journey ever rider rode; 

For this night take I horse to find the truth, 

And where my quest will end yet know I not, 

Save that it shall not end until I find." 

The yellow robe and the mendicant's lot are chosen, 
and "couched on the grass, homeless, alone," "subduing 



THE BODHI TREE. 169 

that fair body born for bliss," he meditated long and 
watched. He became an itinerant, lived on charity, and 
mortified his flesh "until sin's dross was purged away," 
and " he was winged for glorious spheres and splendor 
past all thought." In the course of his wanderings he 
teaches a poor woman, who mourns for her child, to ac- 
cept death as the inevitable. 

" ' My sister! thou hast found,' the master said, 
' Searching for what none finds, — that hitter balm 
I had to give thee. He thou lovedst slept 
Dead on thy bosom yesterday ; to-day 
Thou know'st the whole wide world weeps with thy woe: 
The grief which all hearts share grows less for one. 
Lo ! I would pour my blood if it could stay 
Thy tears and win the secret of that curse 
Which makes sweet love our anguish, and which drives 
O'er flowers and pastures to the sacrifice, — 
As these dumb beasts are driven, — men their lords. 
I seek that secret: buiy thou thy child! ' " 

He teaches a king the sin and folly of animal sacrifices, 
and impressively affirms that -all life is sacred; and to a 
poor Sudra lad, the victim of caste, he says: 

" ' There is no caste in blood, 
'\Miich runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears. 
Which trickle salt with all; neither comes man 
To birth with tilka-mark stamped on the brow, 
Nor sacred thread on neck. Who doth right deeds 
Is twice-born, and who doeth ill deeds vile.' " 

But the hour comes when, under the Bodh tree, Sid- 
dartha is assailed by manifold temptations. He struggles 
there with the varying forms of evil until, through the 
thick air of the conflict, he at last discerns the dawning 
light. The mystery of life is explained, the means of 
deliverance are revealed, and the perfect knowledge by 
which he hopes to save others as w^ell as himself is finally 
and fully gained. The poem picturesquely traces his sub- 



170 ISMS OLD AN^D NEW. 

sequent career, his visit to his childhood's home, the ven- 
eration he inspired in his father, the doctrines he taught, 
the countries he subdued, the peaceful death he died, 

passing 

" Unto Nirvana, where the Silence lives." 

The account thus given by Mr. Arnold is, in all of its 
essential features, verified by recognized authorities, and 
may be accepted as substantially correct. From it, as well 
as from other sources of information, we gather that Sid- 
dartha, after a youth spent in luxury, became a self-deny- 
ing, holy man, — one of the few historic characters whose 
purity was transcendent. He evidently struggled hard to 
subdue sin in his members, and gloriously triumphed. Let 
us not detract from this ancient Indian sage in the least, 
but gratefully acknowledge his resplendent moral beauty. 
He was also a reformer, — the Luther of his times, — the 
stern enemy of caste and of animal sacrifice. Around all 
life he shed a hallowed influence, the priestly orders he 
subverted, and magnified the importance of the individ- 
ual. He gave a system of ethics to his country that has 
only been surpassed by the sublimer code of the Naza- 
rene. Burnouf reproduces ten commandments of which 
Siddartha is reputed the author, which forbid killing, 
stealing, unchastity, falsehood, intemperance, irregularity 
in eating, attendance on exhibitions of dancing and dra- 
matic representations, perfumes, sleeping in a large or 
high bed, and the acceptance of gold or silver. While 
some of these precepts are exceedingly curious, most of 
them are wholesome and of universal application. They 
reveal deep spiritual insight into the necessities of the 
race, and justify us in assigning to their author a very 
high rank among the moral teachers of mankind. 

The doctrines of Buddha cannot as easily be determined 
as his ethics. Mr. Arnold, in various places in his poem, 
brings to view his own conceptions of what the illustrious 



THE DOCTRINE OF BUDDHA. 171 

reformer taught. According to his interpretation the 
misery of existence was the starting point of Siddartha's 
teachings. Doomed to he until sin should be quite purged 
away, and passing from one form of life to another, and 
through various worlds, the people for ages had thirsted to 
be delivered from this bondage, and to attain the blessedness 
of extinction. The doctrine of transmigration Buddha ad- 
vocated, though, according to Arnold, it is very question- 
able whether he proclaimed "nothingness as the issue and 
crown of being." The word "Nirvana" represents this 
final state, whatever it may be, and the passages in the 
poem which refer to it breathe a Pantheistic spirit and 
leave the impression on the reader that absorption in the 
Universal Soul was the hope set by Buddha before his fol- 
lowers. The poet puts on the lips of his hero the words: 

"The aching craze to live ends, and life glides — 
Lifeless — to nameless quiet, nameless joy; 
Blessed- Nirvana, — sinless, stirless rest, — 
That change which never changes." 

In another place he adds: 

" Seeking nothing, he gains all ; 

Foregoing self, the universe grows ' I ' : 
If any teach Nirvana is to cease, 
Say unto such they lie." 

Here we have a refined Pantheism, and the closing lines 
of the poem confirm this view: 

" The dew is on the lotus ! — Rise, great sun ! 
And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. 
Om, mani padme, om, the sunrise comes! 
The dewdrop slips into the shining sea! " 

Mr. T. W. Rhys Davids does not believe that the hope 
preached by Buddha was peacefulness in the eternal deeps 
of annihilation. He says: "Nirvana is the extinction of 
that sinful, grasping condition of mind and heart which 
would otherwise be the cause of renewed individual exist- 



172 ISMS OLD AND HEW. 

ence. That extinction is to be brought about by, and 
runs parallel with, the growth of the opposite condition of 
mind and heart, and is complete when that opposite condi- 
tion is reached. Nirvana is therefore the same thing as a 
sinless, calm state of mind, and if translated at all, may- 
best perhaps be rendered as 'holiness,' — holiness, that is, 
in the Buddhist sense, perfect peace, goodness and wis- 
dom." Bunsen advocates a similar explanation, and 
Johnson says: "Etymology at least fails to bear out the 
confident assurances of Burnouf, Koeppen, "Weber and 
others, that 'its extinction of the lamp of existence' 
means absolute annihilation. Nirvana is from nir, separa- 
tion from, and vd, wind. The simplest and most natural 
meaning seems to be, not 'blown out,' but 'no more 
waving,' as from the presence of wind, no more restless- 
ness and change. It is familiar to Brahmanical literature 
as synonymous with words signifying release, emancipa- 
tion, the highest good." Colebrook defines it as "pro- 
found calm." And this rendering seems to be sustained 
by The Dhammapada, or "Path of Virtue," which is sup- 
posed to contain exact accounts of what Buddha really 
taught. According to this record Nirvana is "the uncre- 
ated, the ineffable, the immortal"; "the place of repose 
and bliss, where embodiments cease"; "the other shore, 
beyond the power of death, where one is thoughtful, 
guileless, free from doubt and from all desires, and con- 
tent." "The true sage is he who knows his former 
abodes, who sees heaven and hell, who has reached the 
end of births, and is perfect in wisdom." "Tear away 
attachments (self-love) from thy being, as an autumn lotus 
with thy hand, and make thy way open to Nirvana, to 
rest." ( Vide Johnson.) In view of these interpretations, 
we may credit the Reformer who is called by Arnold "The 
Light of Asia" with teaching his disciples to look for 
something more than nonentity as the end of all their 



NIRVANA. 173 

strivings, though it may not be transparently clear whether 
he grasped the sublime conception of personal immortal- 
ity, or discerned merely its vague, shadowy semblance. 
Probably his doctrine was but little different from that of 
the Bhagavadgita, and there we find unmistakable traces 
of Pantheism, as in the following passage from Thomson's 
translation: ^'As the all-penetrating ether, from the mi- 
nuteness of its parts, passeth everywhere unaffected, so 
this spirit in the body. As one sun illumines the whole 
world, so does the one spirit illumine the whole of matter. 
O Bharata! They who thus perceive the body and the 
soul as distinct, and that there is release, go to the 
Supreme." Most likely Gautama's sentiments were simi- 
lar to these, and, as Arnold represents him, he may have 
taught concerning the self-conquering man : 

" Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins 

Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes 
Invade his safe eternal peace ; nor deaths 
And lives recur. He goes 

" Unto Nirvana. He is one with Life, 

Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. 
Om, mani padme, om! the Dewdrop slips 
Into the shining sea! " 

The reader of the "Light of Asia" will be struck by 
the almost total absence of reference to a Supreme Being. 
This is one of the distinguishing features of Buddhism. 
Its author added nothing to the world's knowledge of 
God. On the supposition that this is explained by the 
adoption of the Vedas by Siddartha, and that he believed 
in the Deity and divinities they praise, he is relieved from 
the charge of Atheism, but it still remains strange that he 
did not supplement their revelations with some additional 
light. Professor Tyndall is positive that he "divorced 
ethics not only from Brahma and the Brahminic trinity, 
but even from the existence of God." I have also seen it 



174 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

stated that Dr. Judson declared that "there was nothing 
in his system to redeem it from the cliarge of absolute 
Atheism." But to these representations Dr. Johnson 
answers: "It is certain, whatever may be true of meta- 
physical statements, that neither Nihilism nor Atheism 
characterizes the mass of Buddhist literature, the rites of 
the Buddhist church, or, as a whole, the sects into which 
it has become divided. It would, indeed, be fatal to our 
hopes for human nature if we could be forced to believe 
that four hundred millions of at least partially civilized 
people have made a religion out of the love of nonentity, 
or, indeed, out of mere negation in any form. The appar- 
ent Atheism of the Buddhist is, in substance, opposition 
to the idea of an external God, limited and individual, 
acting in imperfect human ways." And in support of this 
view he informs the reader that " The temples of Nepal 
afford proof that the belief in a supreme, all-seeing Bud- 
dha, represented by two Eyes as symbols of intelligence, 
was current in these regions at least as early as the begin- 
ning of the Christian era. The Nepalese say that 'Swa- 
yambhu, the self-existent, called Adibuddha, was when 
nothing else was. He wished to become many, and pro- 
duced the Buddhas through union Avith his desire. Adi- 
buddha was never seen. He is pure light.'" From these 
statements I think w^e may with safety conclude that at 
least Siddartha recognized a Supreme Impersonal exist- 
ence, into whom all purified souls should at last be ab- 
sorbed, and that the great object of earthly life should be 
such an abnegation of self as to prepare the soul for its 
return to its everlasting home in God. 

The path to be pursued by whicli tais end is to be at- 
tained is in essentiality one of works. Hence our poet 
sings : 

" Evil swells the debts to pay, 
Good delivers and acquits ; 



THE GOSPEL OF BUDDHA. 175 

Shim evil, follow good ; hold sway- 
Over thyself. This is the Way." 

But Siddartha is no Redeemer, no sacrificial priest, no 
Savior in the highest sense, doing for humanity what it 
never could accomplish for itself. He is only a great 
teacher, a wonderful seer who discerns the origin of evil 
and who points out how the race may effect its own de- 
liverance. In reality he does nothing to help the indi- 
vidual. He makes more vivid the mighty barriers between 
man and unbroken peace, and then leaves to him the 
inexecutable task of removing them: 

"Nought from the helpless gods by gift and hymn. 

Nor bribe with blood, nor feed with fruits and cakes; 
Within yourselves deliverance must be sought- 
Each man his prison makes." 

Such is the Gospel that he teaches. He tells the 
world that there are paths, steps, commandments, all of 
which are beautiful in theory and in practice, and he com- 
mends them to the race. But he mis'ht as %vell uro'e an 
individual to lift himself from the ground in his own 
arms, or to walk while he stands still, or to sleep w4iile he 
wakes, for not more impossible are these physical perform- 
ances than are the various duties he enjoins. Who 
among the living can ever hope to effect escape from the 
evils of his lot by the method set forth in this exquisite 
recipe for their extinction ? 

" The third is Sorrow's Ceasing. This is peace 
To conquer love of self and lust of life, 
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast, 
To still the inward strife ; 

For love to clasp Eternal Beauty close; 

For glory to be Lord of self, for pleasure 
To live beyond the gods ; for countless wealth 

To lay up lasting treasure 



176 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

Of perfect service rendered, duties done 

In charity, soft speech, and stainless days : 

These riches shall not fade away in life 
Nor any death dispraise. 

Then Sorrow ends, for Life and Death have ceased ; 

How should lamps flicker when their oil is spent? 
The old sad count is clear, the new is clean; 

Thus hath a man content." 

We can have no possible objection to these recommen- 
dations; but if eternal felicity rests on their being met 
and fulfilled in our own strength, unhappy are we! What 
humanity needs is positive Divine help to right doing, not 
a mere eloquent elaboration of what it is to do right. 
This is the special weakness of the whole system, and ex- 
plains why with a magnificent code of ethics the millions 
of its adherents are cursed with ignorance, superstition, 
and moral defilement. They have fallen back from the 
herculean and hopeless endeavor to perfect their own 
righteousness; and in sullen despondency they sink 
deeper and deeper into the mire. No help for them in 
Buddha, only pitiable revelation of their bottomless mis- 
ery. Assistance must come to them from som^ other 
quarter, if at all; for as to their Siddartha he is only a 
great talker, and not a great doer, and what they need 
preeminently is work done for them, not words spoken to 
them. Nevertheless, while his system is fairly open to 
this criticism, and short as it comes of the truth, yet, 
considering the ag'e in wdiich the prophet lived, it reflects 
high honor on his name; and if we will but realize how 
exalted w^ere the ethics that he taught, how singularly 
unselfish was his spirit, and how fully he kept before the 
people their need of a savior, — although the conception 
he formed of a savior's mission was meager and er- 
roneous in the extreme — we may with confidence ascribe 
to him the additional honor of being an adumbration of 



CHRIST AK"D SIDDARTHA. 177 

Him who, in the fulhiess of time, " was born of a woman, 
born under the law that he might redeem them which were 
under the law, that they might receive the adoption of 
sons." 

Behold! a greater than Buddha is here! If we compare 
Jesus or rather contrast Him with the founder of Buddhism, 
His infinite superiority will still appear — a superiority as 
marked as that of solar light over the soft-shining stars, the 
phosphorescence of the sea, and the flame-fires that blaze 
from earth's vestal altars — a superiority that reaches up 
to Divinity, and requires Divinity to explain. Unlike 
Siddartha, Jesus was born in poverty, enjoyed few, if any, 
advantages of education, and was from the first an outcast 
in the world. His youth tasted not the pleasures that 
affluence and rank procure, nor His manhood the sweet 
flavor of adulation lavished so freely on aged Siddar- 
tha. Like the Hindu, He engaged in the sublimest of en- 
deavors — to save mankind — but how unlike his method. 
The sage retires to the wilderness to gather moral strength 
for his enterprise; to save himself before he tries to save 
others. Jesus from the first is perfect, sinless, and pursues 
His mission among crowds of men, mingling with them 
freely, and too pure to fear taint from any. Buddha 
wears a peculiar garb, ostentatiously is indigent, and cru- 
elly ascetic. Jesus distinguishes Himself by no profes- 
sional badge; does not court poverty, but endures it; and 
is genial, social and companionable. They are both sym- 
pathetic, self-sacrificing; but the one is appreciated in his 
lifetime, revered by princes, respected even by the priests 
against whose ritual he preached, and dies at an advanced 
age, venerated by Asia; while the other is misjudged, mis- 
understood by His contemporaries, is rejected by the sacer- 
dotal orders, betrayed by His disciples, and at last is 
crucified as a malefactor. What an infinite difference! 
What a chasm to be bridged! Surely no highly-painted 
13 



178 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

theory of naturalism is equal to such a task! This Jesus, 
this peasant's child, this untaught, untutored man, this 
mechanic, who mingled freely with the humblest and the 
vilest, this citizen of a despised nation, born in an obscure 
town and reared in a wretched village, insulted, rejected, 
murdered, has become, in fact, what was foreseen and pre- 
dicted He would be — the "Light of the World." Tlie 
light not of one country, but of all; not of one race, but 
of every race. Even in that India where Buddha taught, 
converts throng to hear His word; and, speaking for the 
Brahmo Somaj, its leader, Chunder Sen, declares that the 
Star of Bethlehem is rising on the night of Asia; that 
Christ it is who holds India loyal to the British throne; 
that Christ, not bayonets, reconciles the people to English 
rule, and that Christ, not earthly kings, shall dominate the 
thought and life of all the millions who have for ages 
listened spellbound to Gautama's wisdom. How shall we 
explain this mystery ? If it is even difficult to account for 
Buddha's triumph by Buddha's life, though its circum- 
stances were not unfavorable to success, what shall we say 
of Christ ? He, against whom surroundings, condition, 
rank, yea, everything of an external nature, militated, 
achieves a world-wide victory, and the mystery thickens 
as the issue becomes more assured. What shall we say ? 
How reach the truth ? Outward circumstances of His life 
fail to supply the answer, and we are shut up to the inev- 
itable, that in Jesus we meet an element higher than the 
human — the divine; and that, if the career of Buddha is 
a wonder, that of Jesus is a miracle; yea, the unapproach- 
able and stupendous miracle of the universa 

This conclusion increases in force when we contrast the 
teachings of these spiritual heroes. The puerilities that 
mingle with the sublime ethics of Siddartha find no place 
in the code of Jesus. He wastes no breath on the height 
or length of one's bed, and decries neither innocent amuse- 



THE TEACHII^GS OF JESUS. 179 

ments, nor the art of music. He seeks not to rob life of 
its joys, its simple pleasures, or its sunny gladsomeness. 
Unlike Siddartha, He represents existence as a blessing, a 
heavenly boon, to be prized and cherished, and to be 
returned unstained to the keeping of its Author. Unlike 
Siddartha, He lives with God, communes with Him, walks 
with Him, and ever seems to be looking beyond the infinite 
azure into the smiling of His face. Of this Almighty Be- 
ing He freely talks to His disciples; calls Him father. His 
father, theirs. The sage of India brings with him no 
word from the eternities concerning Him " in whom we 
live, move, and have our being." Jesus reveals His very 
nature, reveals His innermost heart, and shows that He 
who is Spirit incomprehensible is comprehensible love. 
He announces as the most glorious heritage of humanity 
the privilege of access to His presence, the possibility of 
commerce with His spirit, and of rest in His favor. The 
world was no longer lonely after Christ had spoken. God 
became a living presence everywhere. His smile rested 
on all His works, and even the shadow of the valley of 
death became transformed into radiance through the sun- 
shine of His countenance. Blessed forever be His name 
who lifted the veil of mystery from the universe, and ena- 
bled saddened eyes to see a face beyond — the Father's 
face — beaming with tenderness on His creatures! 

Not as Siddartha did Jesus speak of the soul's eternal 
destiny. No Pantheistic subtlety, no consciousless im- 
mortality, no " dewdrop slipping into the shining sea," 
was the burden of His high discourse. " He spake as 
never man spake." To all the teeming millions of this 
earth, to every human unit — however insignificant and 
debased — he proclaimed an existence endless. The flight 
of untold ages, all the vast cycles of a future, with which 
the unmeasured and immeasurable past is but as a watch 
in the fleeting night, and all the convulsions, upheavals, 



180 ISMS OLD A:NrD NEW. 

destructions, and re-creations of this complicated universe 
shall set no limit, find no grave, and shall bring neither 
decrepitude nor death to any human soul. Immortality, 
personal immortality, the reality of being, not its dream, 
is the glad message that fell from His sacred lips on the 
ear of a breathless world. But sad would have been His 
words, though radiant with the hope of life, had they 
been unaccompanied by that grace which "opens the 
kingdom of heaven to all believers." How should the 
sin-stained and polluted hope to enter into the invisible, 
on whose portals, thrones, and crowns is written one 
appalling word, whiter than light and fiercer than 
flame — Purity; "Without holiness no man shall see the 
Lord." Drown, drown, in a wail of lamentation the voice 
of immortality; let not its whisper excite our fears, let not 
its breath smite the little joy we have on earth. What 
has a sinner to do with immortality ? Who craves to live 
eternally, carrying with him the plague of guilt to tor- 
ment him evermore? Better Nirvana, better Nihilism, 
better anything than such an immortality as this. Cruel 
would it have been in the Master to promise this, more 
fitting to be spoken by a devil than a Christ, and deserv- 
ing more the anathema of a world than its benediction. 
But His gracious lips were not closed forever when He 
pronounced the word "immortal." They parted once 
more, and proclaimed " salvation." Salvation ! Not the 
salvation Siddartha taught — salvation painfully wrought 
out through many births, in many worlds, by each sin- 
afflicted soul. No! the salvation Jesus preached, Jesus 
won, and freely gives to all who will accept the gift. 
This was the gospel that He spoke; this was the gospel 
that thrilled the world with joy; and this is still the gos- 
pel that conquers human hearts, and sweeps onward to 
crown the race with glory. 

What think you of such a gospel ? Do you say that 



IS CHRIST DIVINE? 181 

its magnificence explains the mystery of Jesus? Granted; 
but what explains the magnificence of the gospel ? Here 
is sublimity your Siddarthas never dreamed of, here are 
moral magnitudes your Buddhas never measured. Yet 
are these Hindu teachers so great that under their names 
we write " inspired," and exalt them far above all others 
of their race ? What then shall we, what must we, write 
under the name of Him " who brought life and immortal- 
ity to light," and how much higher than the highest shall 
we exalt Him ? Faith answers, and reverent Reason says 
"Amen," — " God over all, blessed forevermore." 

To test the soundness of this stupendous inference, let 
us carry the grave inquiry into the following discourse; 
and it may come to pass that even captious and self-suffi- 
cient Doubt will recognize Divinity veiled and hooded in 
the humanity of Christ. 



UNITAEIANISM. 

"And Pilate saith unto them : Behold the man ! " John xix, 5. 

" Like us a man, He trod on earthly soil, 
He bore each pang, and strove in weary toil ; 
He spake with human words, with pity sighed ; 
Like us He mourned, and feared, and wept, and died." 

" Yet all thy fullness, Father, dwelt in Him, 
In whom no shadow made the glory dim; 
Such strength, O God ! from Him to us derive. 
And make, by life from Him, our death alive." 

JoJm Sterling. 

SOMETIMES words express more than their author in- 
tends, or are susceptible of a deeper meaning than 
he imagined when they fell from his lips. Thus when 
Caiaphas said that "it was expedient that one man should 
die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not," 
he had not the remotest idea that his language was pro- 
phetical, and that he was not only predicting the death 
of Jesus, but was actually shadowing forth its great de- 
sign. Yet, if the apostle is to be credited, such was the 
case. And when Pontius Pilate, the sixth Roman pro- 
curator of Judea, a cold, cruel, calculating ruler, morally 
enervated and incapable of vigorous rectitude, after the 
scourging of the obscure Nazarene in the Prgetorium, had 
brought Him once again into the presence of His furious 
accusers, hoping, by the pitiable spectacle of His suffer- 
ings, to excite compassion and obtain His liberation with- 
out compromising himself, he could not have anticipated 
that his exclamation, "Behold the man!" would form the 
text of many a sermon, and would be regarded as an un- 

182 



THE MARVELOUS MAKHOOD. 18B 

conscious tribute to an exclusive and exceptional personal 
grandeur in the prisoner worthy of attentive thought 
throughout successive generations. Yet this is exactly 
the impression made on many minds. The words of the 
governor are so concise and direct that, if the emphasis is 
laid on the definite article, his speech sounds like the voice 
of inspiration testifying to the unique, unprecedented, and 
unapproachable manhood of Jesus. It is as though he 
said: "Behold the flower of humanity, the bright con- 
summation and circled completeness of the race, the one 
being who cannot be compared with any other, who is as 
high above all others as the heavens are higher than the 
earth, and who gathers in Himself and expresses in Him- 
self the diverse excellences of all the generations past and 
of those yet to come. Behold Him, who should be called 
preeminently the Man^ as in Him the ideal perfection, 
toward which countless weary souls have been struggling, 
is actualized; and the impossible dreams of spiritual beauty, 
which have haunted the minds of the noblest and the 
purest, are fulfilled." The proud Roman, of course, had 
no such thought as this when he presented the outraged 
Jesus to His enemies; but it occurs to us as we ponder 
his language, and it has come to be the faith of reflecting 
and reverent millions. 

To the Unitarians the world is largely indebted for the 
elevated and now widely prevalent conception of Christ's 
manhood. There was a time when His character was 
painted in somber, threatening colors, that displayed the 
awfulness of majesty more than the sweetness of mercy. 
He was to the middle ages a harsh, implacable judge, a 
far-off, isolated king, whose reluctant benediction was only 
obtainable through the interposition of hearts more tender 
than His own. A few gifted souls discovered the injustice 
of such delineations, but the majority of Christian people 
adhered to them even after the Reformation. Protestant 



184 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

theology in its earlier stages reproduced them, modifying 
them slightly in some particulars, while it amplified them 
in others. The human figure it presented was morally 
sublime, but it was too mechanical in its splendid right- 
eousness, too automatic in its wonderful beneficence, and 
too frigid, stiff, and angular in its saving sympathy for it 
to be a faithful portrait of the Redeemer. But with the 
growth of Unitarian sentiments the rigid lines of this like- 
ness have been softened, its stateliness has been relaxed, 
and into the whole composition has been thrown a tender 
light, like that which gleams from the eyes of the infant 
Jesus and irradiates the faces of the cherubim in Raphael's 
Madonna di San Sisto. Herder and Channing, and possibly 
Theodore Parker, are entitled to much credit for this trans- 
formation ; though in my opinion the more orthodox 
school, represented by such writers as Horace Bushnell 
and Frederick Robertson, is to be commended for recent 
endeavors in the same direction; and even the rationalists 
Strauss and Renan, have not failed to furnish some valu- 
able material toward the completion of this work. But, 
while the labors of all are to be acknowledged, to Unita- 
rians must be assigned the high honor of leadership in 
the movement to restore the true manhood of Jesus to 
the thought of the world. Whatever the shortcomings 
of their theology may be in other respects, at least in this 
it harmonizes very fully with the teachings of the New 
Testament; and however it may fail to generate a deep 
spirit of piety, it admirably succeeds in presenting to 
society the most exalted model of human duty. So im- 
pressed am I with what I recognize as their influence on 
literature, art, and philanthropy, that it is to me the most 
ungrateful of tasks to question the wholesome effect of 
their views on devotion and spirituality. Yet it will hardly 
be claimed by their most ardent admirers — and among 
them I venture to class myself — that in these latter re- 



PERPLEXITIES. 185 

spects their churches approach the standard supplied by 
the authors of the Gospels and Epistles. And if they do 
not, the failure must be largely due to some defect in their 
doctrine, and particularly to some radical inconsistency in 
their treatment of Christ's essential nature. This, I am 
persuaded, is more than a mere suspicion. There are rea- 
sons for believing that the most exalted conception of 
manhood does not exhaust the apparently infinite mean- 
ing there is in Christ; that it is at best but a fragment, a 
Torso requiring another and a sublimer conception for its 
completion, and which, like the Torso at Rome, while de- 
lighting and refining, must always fail to produce in mind 
and heart the same great effect that the unbroken figure 
would. It is just at this point where Unitarianism, espe- 
cially of the advanced type, is seriously at fault. It takes 
for granted that the humanity of Jesus is the all of Jesus; 
that He is man and only man, and that when this is said 
everything is said. 

But how can such a question as this be decided ? How 
can it be shown that He who is the subject of these doubts 
is anything more than the crown and glory of the race — 
its supreme development, and its grandest representative ? 
He appears in history as a man. He exhibits in His life 
all the essential attributes of a man, and at the last He 
suffers and dies as a man. Why, then, should it be imag- 
ined that He is anything higher ? As it was said during 
his ministry, '' Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, 
and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon ? 
and are not his sisters here with us ? " Yes; and yet they 
who asked these questions were astounded by His wisdom 
and perplexed by His mighty works. They were not sure 
of their ground ; neither are we. Permit then an additional 
inquiry. Why did the astronomer Leverrier affirm the 
existence of an unseen orb, and predict its appearance in 
the heavens at a certain time ? And why was Christopher 



186 ISMS Old akd kew. 

Columbus so fully convinced that beyond the waste and 
darkness of unknown seas another continent would be 
found? The answer is not difficult. The student of 
the skies inferred from the irregular movements of the 
planet Uranus the existence of a disturbing body; and the 
brave navigator was led by what he knew of one hemis- 
phere to infer the indispensableness of another. They 
reasoned from the known to the unknown, from the seen 
to the unseen, from the part to the whole, and the result 
in both cases justified the soundness of the process. And 
in a similar way evangelical thinkers, having fathomed the 
depths and scaled the heights of humanity, and having 
measured by sixty centuries of history what it is capable 
of producing, have been forced to conclude that such a 
manhood as friend and foe attribute to Christ is deeper 
than its depths, higher than its heights, and entirely 
beyond its power to generate; and consequently, that it 
calls for another and a more heavenly orb to explain its 
eccentric movements, for another and grander continent to 
balance the lowly one of earth, for another nature than the 
human to account for it rationally, even such a nature as 
that toward which the testimony of Scriptures manifestly 
points. 

In pursuing this line of argument it is important to 
recall some special features of a character which favor so 
startling and astounding a doctrine. And among them 
there is perhaps none more impressive than its blameless- 
ness. Jesus challenged his enemies to convict him of sin, 
and with the exception of a few querulous critics, like 
Schenkel and Strauss, the impossibility of doing so has 
been acknowledged. This at once differentiates Him from 
the race; for iniquity is a universal malady, from which 
not even the noblest philosophers, such as Plato and Soc- 
rates, and the purest of religious reformers, such as 
Buddha and Mahomet, have dared to claim exemption. 



BLAMELESSNESS OF CHRIST. 187 

How comes it, then, that Jesus is the only being saved 
from this contamination ? He appears in the world, and 
is yet not of the world; He mingles with publicans and 
harlots, and is yet " separate from sinners." As the gulf 
stream passes immediately from its home into the waters 
of the stormful Atlantic, and, while flowing through them, 
never mingles with them, but preserves its own course, its 
own density and color, compressed, inclosed, yet never 
penetrated, so the Son of Man enters the more treacherous 
and tempestuous ocean-wastes of life, and though touched 
on every side, never takes on the moral hue of his sur- 
roundings, nor in the least is swerved from the direct line 
of duty by their variations. Who can tell by what mys- 
tery of attraction the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico 
are so closely bound, or who explain why the emerald 
walls through which their way is channeled should never 
be able to invade their sanctity, every effort to do so only 
pressing them into a ridge, rising high and sloping both to 
right and left ? and who can account for the fact that this 
peasant-preacher not only preserves unstained his righteous 
character in an evil world like this, but even develops a 
loftier and grander righteousness the more closely he is 
hemmed in by wickedness and environed by temptation ? 
It will not do to say that His personal exaltation was due 
to the healing influence of the age in which He lived, or 
to the surroundings of His youth, or to the training of His 
parents; for the times were morally malarious, and the 
community in which His lot was cast was famous for its 
degradation, and the home education He received was not 
at the best superior to that which millions have enjoyed. 
And yet, though His social environments were unfavorable 
to virtue. He evinces from the first a moral greatness, une- 
qualed in the annals of mankind. Rousseau, alluding to 
Socrates, exclaims: "What a delusion it is to venture to 
compare the son of Sophroniskos with the Son of Mary! " 



188 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

and multiplied endeavors have proved the hopelessness of 
finding a parallel anywhere. He stands alone among men, 
the sole perfection. The righteousness of others looks 
like the travesty of some sublime code, a poor attempt 
running into caricature, it is so flavored with inconsisten- 
cies, so flecked with evil; while that of Christ is so com- 
plete that it seems to be the very code itself translating 
itself into the vernacular of conduct. His purity as far ex- 
cels that of the purest as the reflection of the sun's luster in 
the ocean transcends its dim sparkle in the stagnant pool; 
it is as superior to everything that claims kindred with it as 
the sun itself is superior to the stars whose mingled light 
it quenches in its flood of glory. Well, therefore, may it 
be confessed that He cannot without violence be classed 
with beings merely human ; for while He is allied to them, 
and while He shares their nature, it is as one who is not 
of it, but above it. 

Attention has frequently been directed to this particu- 
lar trait of His character, and doubtless much more could 
be added; but there are others which have not been as 
fully considered, and which very strongly point toward the 
superhuman. Stress should be laid on His independence — 
an independence that marked alike His thought and His 
action. This, taken by itself, would hardly warrant the 
supposition of even preternatural manhood, for it is not an 
uncommon virtue; but, taken in connection with all the cir- 
cumstances which surrounded Jesus, it forms a link in the 
chain of reasoning that apparently necessitates divinity. 
It is, to say the least of it, remarkable that a youthful 
member of a conquered race, who must have seen that his 
people were doing their utmost to conserve the good will 
of their masters, should have pursued his way in perfect 
indifference to their opinion. If it is suggested that He is 
but one of many heroes who have championed the cause of 
their distressed country, it should be remembered that 



CHRIST'S INDEPEiq-DENCE. 189 

these chosen leaders have always sympathized with the 
spirit and institutions of the land for whose sufferings 
they felt so deeply. This, however, is not true of Christ. 
He not only treads the earth as though there were no 
Romans, but He pursues His way as though there were no 
Jews. He antagonizes with the ideas, customs, rites, of 
His own people far more than He opposes the invader. 
In one sense. He seems to live in an atmosphere of obliv- 
ion, to speak and act from a deep realization of duty, 
unconscious and heedless of those whom He might offend. 
Of course, events made Him fully sensible of the enemies 
He was creating, but it worked no change in His manner 
or conduct. To the end He stood by His convictions, 
calmly listened to the revilings of His foes, and with the 
shadow of the cross on His path, continued to denounce 
their bigotry, their ceremonialism and self-righteousness. 
Having shocked his generation by proclaiming the equality 
of man, the spirituality of worship, the sacredness of chari- 
ty, and the universal need of a Redeemer, He quietly sur- 
i*enders His life, and in His last moments startles all who 
contemplate His sufferings by breathing the then unheard- 
of prayer: "Father, forgive them, they know not what 
they do." Such independence as this cannot be classed 
with that of the patriot, for the intense love of country 
w^hich makes a hero mighty against his enemies also blinds 
him to its faults, and leads him to extenuate, not expose, 
them. Neither can it be accounted for by the spirit of the 
age, which was servile and calculating; nor can it be traced 
to the influence of royalty, as it might be in the case of 
Buddha, for Jesus was a peasant born, and had only a 
peasant's inspirations. Under these circumstances it is 
difficult to divest oneself of the impression that it is the 
sign of a superior nature, and possibly of a nature out- 
ranking in dignity every degree of creaturehood. 

The ancient Egyptians rendered divine honors to the 



190 ISMS OLD AND l^im- 

Nile. Unlike other rivers, that sacred stream^ derives no 
addition to its fullness from humbler profluent tributaries,, 
but is fed by hidden sources and by rains from heaven. 
It gives to the land through which it flows, and receives 
not in return. Unsustained, unsupplied, and unincreased 
by waters from the heart of Egypt, it proudly pursues its 
journey to the sea, enriching but not enriched. Its state- 
ly independence aroused the admiration of the millions 
who in olden times dwelt along its banks, and to their 
faith it assumed the sanctity of a god. On the verge of 
the glacier, planted among sterile rocks, surrounded by 
inhospitable snows, confronting defiantly ten long months 
of rigorous winter, the arolla lives, strives, and conquers. 
The hurricane cannot subdue it, the searching icy wind 
cannot penetrate it, the might of the avalanche cannot 
overwhelm it, and the fierce frost that rends the granite 
cannot cleave its sinewy trunk. Upon what does it feed ? 
from what does it derive its strength ? by what is it sup- 
ported in a region where other plants find only death ? 
Light! the rays of the sun nourish and comfort it in its 
deary solitude. Not from the earth but from the heavens 
it receives its aliment, which it appropriates to itself, in- 
corporating the subtle power of sunbeams into its own 
vitality. And why may not this lonely Jesus, this solitary 
man, who poured the wealth of his love on an unappre- 
ciating and unresponsive world, who streamed through its 
barren wastes bearing spiritual healing and plenty to its 
desolate millions, and who received nothing in return and 
who sought nothing, have descended from heights grander 
than those in which the origin of the Nile is hidden, and 
have sustained a closer relation to the Everlasting Father 
than that sacred river to the rain-dispensing clouds ? 
And why may not He, fittingly called by the inspired 
prophet "a root out of dry ground," whose barren 
and wintry surroundings threatened to crush and to de- 



THE INFALLIBILITY OF JESUS. 191 

stroy, but who amid the human tempest lifted high His 
head, and dauntlessly spoke His message, have been up- 
held and rendered free of fear through the indwelling of a 
Light surpassing the sun in power and radiance, and why 
may not His affinity for that Light — which here shall not 
be named — proclaim a nature more deeply allied to the 
inner glory of the heavens than to the weakness and 
shame of earth ? 

If we associate with the independence of Jesus His in- 
fallibility, these conjectures will gather additional force, 
and may lead us to the truth. As His biography is 
studied. His profound insight into men and things and 
His foresight of particular and general movements cannot 
be overlooked. The reader hardly knows which to admire 
most. His spirit of penetration or His spirit of prophecy; 
His vision that discerns the hidden thoughts of His con- 
temporaries, or that which sees through the vista of ages 
the end from the beginning. But from whatever side it 
is contemplated. His infallibility is undeniable. He made 
no mistakes. It cannot be shown that on any occasion He 
fell into errors of speech or of conduct. He was always 
accurate, always correct, always right. No necessity has 
arisen in the course of eighteen centuries to revise His 
teachings or to apologize for His predictions. They have 
both vindicated themselves; the first, by their adaptation 
to man's spiritual needs; the second, whether relating to 
the fall of Jerusalem, the progress of Christianity, or to 
the march of empire by their fulfillment in history. Other 
men have been inspired, and have uttered truths concern- 
ing the present and the future, but none who, in every 
respect, in conduct as well as in preaching, in personal as 
well as in public affairs, has been absolutely unerring. 
Your Johns, your Pauls and Peters were not exempt from 
infirmities, or saved from the commission of serious blun- 
ders. It would seem as though the Infinite Spirit had 



192 ISMS OLD AifD NEW. 

painted faithfully their career, that all might see that even 
inspired men are not infallible men, and that the only infal- 
lible man known to the world is Jesus — and such being 
the case, that it is very questionable whether it is admis- 
sible to speak of Him as man at all. 

The wonderful influence of our Savior is calculated to 
aid us in arriving at a reliable conclusion on this point. 
Christ in subsequent history is more marvelous than Christ 
in Galilee. Since the removal of His human presence He 
has wrought more stupendous miracles than He performed 
in Syria. There and then he simply opened the eyes of a 
few blind men, restored to health some who were sick, fed 
occasionally a hungry crowd, and raised an inconsiderable 
number from the dead; but since His ascension He has 
removed from nations the veil of mental darkness, has 
imparted moral health to entire communities, has satisfied 
the longings of millions for the imperishable bread, and 
has rescued tribes, races and peoples from the dreariness 
of spiritual death. For some eighteen hundred years He 
has been the real leader of the world's progress. Its ma- 
jestic movements, surprising revolutions, startling refor- 
mations, upheavals, convulsions and transformations are 
traceable to the power of His name. And for what yet 
grander results may we not hope from this apparently 
exhaustless source? Plato said that "beauty is the re- 
flection of truth," and it is equally safe to say that truth 
is the reflection of God. In Christ it shone supremely, 
and before His presence the night of nights could not 
endure. As the Scriptures represent Him, like the sun He 
rose upon the world and began His triumphant journey, 
"rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." But the 
zenith has not been reached; it is not high noon yet. 
Already His celestial rays, falling on the horrible brood of 
superstitions engendered by weary years of mud and slime, 
have inflicted on them a mortal wound, as in the legend the 



THE IXFLUE:N^CE of JESUS. 193 

burning shafts of the god of day destroyed the pernicious 
offspring of many-folded Python. Already the mists and 
vapors, born of the turbid seas of human error, and which 
once obscured the heavens. He has dispersed, and faintly 
at least the gates of the Holy City can be seen. Already 
the clouds of suffering are transfused by His love, and the 
silver lining can be discovered, prophetic of the hour when 
every shadow shall cease to fall on human lives. Even now 
His burning splendor melts the sunless heart, gently opens 
the sleeping eyes of childhood to the high concerns of an 
eternal scene, and calls the weary pilgrim to the blessed 
song of hope; but by and by He who is shining more and 
more shall bring the perfect day, and then the weeping 
that endures for the night shall cease, and joy, endless, 
world-wide joy, shall come with the eternal morning. 
Lecky, in his History of European Morals ^ calls at- 
tention to this potent and boundless influence in these 
vigorous words: "It was reserved for Christianity to 
present to the world an ideal character, which through all 
the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts 
of men with an impassioned love, has shown itself capable 
of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions, 
has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the 
strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so 
deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple 
record of these three short years of active life has done 
more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the dis- 
quisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of 
moralists. This has been the well-spring of whatever is 
best and purest in the Christian life." But who is this 
Beino' of whom an avowed rationalist is constrained to 

o 

speak in these unmeasured terms ? Surely not a mere 
creature like himself; surely not an empty ideal, a beauti- 
ful fiction. And who or what is He v/ho in so brief an 
9 



194 ISMS OLD AND ]S"EW. 

earthly ministry acquired such tremendous, lasting and 
beneficent power over the destinies of mankind ? 

Before I undertake to formulate the answer you already 
anticipate, permit me to emphasize the significant fact 
that the most diverse, not to say adverse, schools of 
thought have conceded the inscrutableness of Christ's 
manhood. Rugged Carlyle, who, whatever may have been 
his faults, could appreciate nobility of soul, and who pro- 
tested all his life against shams, acknowledged the impen- 
etrableness of Jesus. He studied Him; he tried to fathom 
the depth of His mystery, and concluded that He would 
ever remain unfathomed and unfathomable. Hear him in 
his chapter on Sy^nhols : "Highest of all symbols are 
those wherein the artist or poet has risen into prophet. 
... I mean religious symbols. Various enough have been 
such religious symbols, what we call religious. ... If 
thou ask to what height man has carried it in this matter 
look on our divinest symbol, — on Jesus of Nazareth, and 
His life and His biography, and what followed therefrom. 
Higher has the human thought not yet reached; this is 
Christianity and Christendom; a symbol of quite peren- 
nial, infinite character, whose significance will ever demand 
to be anew inquired into, and anew made manifest." 
Speaking of heroes he says: ''Hero worship, heartfelt, 
prostrate admiration, submissive, burning, boundless, for a 
noblest godlike form of man: is not that the germ of 
Christianity itself? The greatest of all heroes is one 
xohom we do not name here. Let sacred silence meditate 
that sacred truth; you will find it the ultimate perfection 
of a principle extant throughout man's whole history on 
earth." Dr. Channing maintained that "such a character 
utterly surpasses human comprehension." Napoleon is 
credited by Abbott with this thoughtful expression: "The 
nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another a 
web of mysteries; but this mysteriousness does not corre- 



AN IITSCRUTABLE MAN^HOOD. 195 

spond to the difficulties which all existence contains." 
That is, in it he sees something more perplexing than is 
offered to the mind by all other orders of being. John 
Stuart Mill, who explicitly denies Christ's Divinity, yet in 
his posthumous book on the Utility of Religion and The- 
ism writes of Him in the following glowing terms: "The 
most valuable part of the effect on the .character which 
Christianity has produced by holding up in a divine person 
a standard of excellence and a model for imitation, is avail- 
able even to the absolute unbeliever, and can never more 
be lost to humanity. For it is Christ rather than God 
whom Christianity has held up to believers as the pattern of 
perfection for humanity. It is the God incarnate, more than 
the God of the Jews, or of nature, who, being idealized, 
has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind. 
And whatever else may be taken away by rational criticism 
Christ is still left, a unique figure, not more unlike His 
precursors than all His followers, even those who had the 
direct benefit of His personal teaching. It is of no use to 
say that Christ, as exhibited in the gospels, is not his- 
torical, and that we know not how much of what is admir- 
able has been superadded by the tradition of His followers. 
The tradition of followers suffices to insert any number of 
marvels, and may have inserted all the miracles which He 
is reputed to have wrought. But who among His disci- 
ples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing 
the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and 
character revealed in the gospels ? Certainly not the 
fishermen of Galilee; as certainly not St. Paul, whose 
character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally different 
sort; still less the early Christian writers, in whom nothing 
is more evident than that the good which was in them was 
all derived, as they always professed that it was derived, 
from the highest source." Evidently Mr. Mill is perplexed. 
This Jesus is not an invention, He is a grand reality; but 



196 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

how He ever came to be what He is Mr. Mill cannot tell. 
The problem is too intricate for him. He stammers and 
falls dumb before it. And Theodore Parker, equally be- 
wildered, when referring to the labors of the primitive 
disciples, asks: "But eighteen centuries have passed since 
the sun of humanity rose so high in Jesus; what man, what 
sect, has mastered His thought, comprehended His method, 
and so fully applied it to life ? " Unquestionably they are 
right. He is the puzzle and problem of ages, before whom 
all tongues are mute. As man never spake like Him, so 
man never lived like Him. The geodetics of philosophy, 
and the surveyings and weighings of rationalism, fail to 
give us His true figure and His moral dimensions. His 
spiritual stature defies our yard-sticks and other instru- 
ments of human measurement; and when we have done 
our best to dwarf Him to the narrow range of our under- 
standing, which is attempted by subtracting from Him in 
the interest of some poor earthly hypothesis certain 
graces and powers usually attributed to Him, — we find 
ourselves still uttering words similar to those written by 
Renan, when having undertaken this herculean task he 
exclaims: "Repose now in thy glory, noble founder! Thy 
work is finished, thy divinity is estabhshed. . . . What- 
ever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never 
be surpassed." 

But is there no explanation? Are all inquiries to be 
baffled, all efforts to unravel the riddle to be unavailing? 
Are we perpetually to feel the wondrous presence of this 
mighty Being, and never be able to decide whether He is 
merely human or essentially Divine ? It is incredible that 
the All-Father should have destined us to this uncertainty 
and that there should be no clew to the mystery. I for 
one am compelled to believe otherwise, and cannot resist 
the logical force of the testimonies borne by reluctant 
witnesses to this amazing manhood. When Celsus sneers 



UNBIASED WITNESSES. 197 

at Christ's predictions regarding the universal spread of 
His religion, which, however, have been fulfilled; when 
Chubb acknowledges that we have in Him "an example of 
a quiet and peaceable spirit, of a becoming modesty and 
sobriety, just, honest, upright, and sincere," qualities, mark 
you, that this wicked world of ours does not evince any 
strong liking for; when Goethe says to Eckermann, "I 
look upon all the Four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for 
there is in them the reflection of a greatness which ema- 
nated from the person of Jesus and which was of as divine 
a kind as ever was seen upon earth," and when Strauss 
declares that " Christ remains the highest model of relig- 
ion within the reach of our thought," and "that no perfect 
piety is possible without His 23resence in the heart," repre- 
sentations wholly inexplicable on the Unitarian hypothe- 
sis, I am constrained to inquire, exclaim, and conclude 
with Rousseau: "Is it possible that the sacred personage, 
whose history the Bible contains, should be Himself a 
mere man? What sweetness, what purity in His manner! 
What an affecting gracefulness in His instructions! What 
sublimity in His maxims ! What profound w^isdom in 
His discourses ! If the life and the death of Socrates are 
those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a 
God." And in view of these concessions, uttered by Uni- 
tarians or by those who sympathize with their doctrine 
concerning the merely human nature of our Lord, I can- 
not but subscribe to the essentially orthodox statement of 
James Martineau, the prince of Unitarians, albeit his beau- 
tiful words may suggest to my thought a higher meaning 
than he intended to convey: "Not more clearly does the 
worship of the saintly soul, breathing through its windows 
opened to the midnight, betray the secrets of its affections, 
than the mind of Jesus of Nazareth reveals the perfect 
thought and inmost love of the all-ruling God. Were He 
the only born — the solitary self -revelation — of the ere- 



198 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

ative Spirit, He could not more purely open the mind of 
heaven; being the very Logos — the apprehensible nature 
of God — which, long unuttered to the world, and abiding 
in the beginning with Him, has now come forth and dwelt 
among us, full of grace and truth." Thus all these varied 
writers, starting from different points of view and pursu- 
ing widely divergent routes, arrive at conclusions which 
are plainly irreconcilable with what they profess to hold. 
Nor is it possible if they are rejected to make of Christian- 
ity a consistent system, or consistently to account for 
Christ Himself; but, as the great Napoleon is reported 
by Abbott to have said, " If once the divine character of 
Christ is admitted. Christian doctrine" — including that of 
His manhood as well — "exhibits the precision and clear- 
ness of algebra, so that we are struck with admiration of 
its scientific connection and unity." 

It is no small source of satisfaction that faith in His 
Godhood seems to be fully sustained by Holy Writ. Our 
Lord Himself sanctions it and the apostles confirm it. It 
is true that the title " Son of Man " is that by which He 
specifically designates Himself. In the Gospels it occurs 
sixty times, once in the Acts, and never in the Epistles. 
But why does He not call Himself " Son of Joseph," or 
"Son of Mary," or "Son of Israel"? A merely human 
being desiring to impose on the world might insist on his 
divinity, but he would hardly feel it needful to remind the 
people of his humanity. That would be the first thing 
credited. But Jesus seems to be conscious of a nature 
broader and grander than this term describes, and is ap- 
prehensive that His manifest Godhood will obscure His 
manhood, and consequently He draws attention specially 
to the latter. But in doing so He rejects the limitations 
of tribe, family, and nation, and adopts the title "Son of 
Man," as expressive of His identity with the race and of 
His representative character and mission. He does not, 



CHRIST'S GODHOOD. 199 

however, ignore His divinity. In Matthew xvi, when He 
inquires of His disciples, " Whom do men say that I, the 
Son of Man, am?" he accepts the answer of Peter as cor- 
rect: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
He constantly affirms His preexistence (John iii, 13; vi, 
58; viii and xvi); He claims to have life in Himself, and 
to be one with the Father (John v, 26; x, 30, 38; xvii), 
and, moreover, asserts that He is Himself the very pres- 
ence of the Highest: "He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father." 

These startling assumptions appear to have met with uni- 
form acceptance in the apostolic period. In the Old Tes- 
tament also there is a frequent association of the human 
with the divine. The marvelous vision seen by Ezekiel of 
wheels within wheels, of the living creatures, and of the 
sapphire throne above the firmament of crystal, was per- 
vaded with this union throughout. The prevailing form of 
the celestial beings was that of man; they had the face of 
a man in conjunction with the faces of a lion, eagle and ox; 
and on their four sides were seen the hands of a man, while 
" upon the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a 
man above it." Whatever may be the total import of 
such pictures, they evidently suggested the incarnation 
and the exaltation of the Incarnate One to supreme do- 
minion. Such hieroglyphical intimations must have pre- 
pared the religious world for the reception of Christ's 
claims, and I am not, therefore, surprised to find the 
apostles advocating them very earnestly. In the epistles, 
especially in those addressed to the Philippians, Colos- 
sians, and Ephesians, the Savior is presented as the One 
Being in whom all things in grace, in redemption, and in 
glory are infolded. He is exalted as the source of all 
worlds visible and invisible, and of all creatures, earthly 
and heavenly; He is also "head over all things," "be- 
cause in Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells." 



200 ISMS OLD AND i^EW. 

"Henceforth he is known no more after the flesh"; and 
He is approached in prayer and praise as God (Acts vii, 
59; Rev. xxii, 20), the worship by which, in subsequent 
times, according to Pliny and Eusebius, the disciples were 
distinguished. Nor has their faith failed of justification 
at the hands of philosophers, who are not fairly charge- 
able either with the credulity of superstition or the weak- 
ness of enthusiasm. I do not profess to interpret Hegel, 
but that profound thinker evidently means to teach some- 
thing akin to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation 
when in his Philosophy of History he says: "Christ has 
appeared — a man who is God — God who is man; and 
thereby peace and reconciliation have accrued to the 
world." To this he adds, " The appearance of the Christian 
God involves further its being unique in its kind; it can 
occur only once." And Schelling, claiming that the in- 
carnation beginning with the Savior is to be continued in 
His followers, yet insists that God truly manifested Him- 
self first in Christ. For, as another German has testified, 
" the incarnation was complete in Him, and He has there- 
fore the significance of a personal moral creator of the 
world." 

If anything more is needed to confirm this sublime doc- 
trine to our faith, it is furnished by the light which it 
sheds on the otherwise enigmatical phases of our religion. 
For instance it shows why, as Schelling has it, " the chief 
matter of Christianity is Christ Himself, not what He 
said, but what He is, what He did." Were He only man, 
it would ever remain a mystery why the apostles should 
" desire to know nothing but Him," why they should re- 
ject every other foundation, why they should magnify 
Him as the "All and in All " to the race, and why they 
should exalt Him as the being in whom supreme trust 
should be reposed. Yet this they do continually and un- 
hesitatingly, as though nothing were more reasonable and 



CHRIST IS CHRISTIANITY. 201 

nothing more natural. When discoursing on worship 
they entlirone Christ as its glorious object; when dealing 
with sin and guilt they turn to Christ as atonement and 
as interceding priest; when seeking a rule of conduct 
they find it in Christ's teachings and example; and when 
feeling after signs of immortality they lay hold on Christ's 
resurrection both as the pledge of its certainty and the 
pattern of its beauty. He is presented by them as the 
"Bread of Life," as^he "Water of Life," as the "Day- 
spring from on High," as the "Morning Star," as the 
" Sun of Righteousness," as the " Light of the World," 
as the " Ransom," " Mediator," "Advocate," " Deliverer," 
as the " Lord of Lords " and " King of Kings," expres- 
sions and descriptions which we try in vain to reconcile 
with creaturehood ; but which when divine honors are as- 
scribed to His name we can understand, and, in doing so, 
clearly perceive why the disciples, like Zinzendorf, " made 
this Supreme Power in heaven and on earth the only theme 
they announced, taught in their writings, and treated at 
length." 

Moreover, this view of our Lord's nature throws light 
on the meaning of the Cross. An old chronicler relates 
that a Jew in the sixth century fled for refuge from night 
and storm to an abandoned temple of Apollo. But at 
midnight the building was filled with ghastly, gigantic 
shapes. They moved to and fro in the somber darkness, 
taking counsel of each other, and relating their achieve- 
ments against the Christians. These were the shadows of 
the former gods, the pagan deities whose altars had been 
forsaken. The poor Jew trembled as he beheld them, and 
in his despair, hardly knowing what he did, made the sign 
of the cross. Before its sacred and mysterious potency 
in their turn the demons shuddered, whirled about in 
maddened fear, and hastily vanished in the gloom. This, 
of course, is but a fable; and yet it has a spiritual counter- 



202 ISMS OLD AXD NEW. 

part. The real temple seen by the musty scribe is the 
soul, within whose sacred but polluted courts conscience, 
awe-stricken at the foul thoughts, appetites and lusts 
which revive when we think them dead, and rage when 
we suppose them bound, trembles and cries for swift de- 
liverance. It is obtained through the cross. When that 
is embraced, when it is sacred to the soul, then the sense 
of sin is purged away, and the spectral shapes of evil are 
dispersed. This has been the experience of millions. But 
to what does the tragedy of Calvary owe this wondrous 
power ? Nail to the tree the body of a man — only a man, 
though the best and purest — and the problem is un- 
solved. He could only die for himself, and none other; 
and his death could have no more influence than that of 
others like himself. But let the human sacrifice be sancti- 
fied by the divine presence, let it be the earthly expression 
of God's devotion to the moral order of the universe and 
to the redemption of the guilty, and it acquires a new 
meaning, and an explicable moral force. 

Christ's Divinity also accounts for His exaltation to 
the right hand of God, justifies the worship of angels and 
the confidence of mankind. It makes clear His right to 
the throne of the universe, and enables the mind to under- 
stand why He is exalted in providence, in grace, and in 
judgment. It is the unifying truth that harmonizes all 
other teachings of Christianity and renders the entire 
system symmetrical and complete. And, finally, it is the 
truth of all others that renders the obligation of the sinner 
distinct and solemn. In dealing with Christ he is dealing 
with God. It is not a mere human being that stands at 
the door of the heart, gently pleading for admission. He 
that is seeking entrance, who has been seeking through 
long, weary years, and to whom cold ingratitude has re- 
peatedly said "to-morrow," is not a mere earth-born crea- 
ture, but the Lord of all. To reject Him is to reject God, 



PHIDIAS THE SCULPTOR. 203 

and to reject God is to accept despair. Then, how clear 
our duty! Were He but a man we might reasonably 
pause, question His claims, and hesitate to admit Him to 
the inner sanctuary of our being; but, as He is " God 
over all, blessed forevermore," every obstacle should yield, 
every hindrance be removed, and the King of Glory be 
welcomed to His own. Let this duty be performed. Cry 
to thy soul: "Lift up thy heads, O ye gates! and the 
King of glory shall enter in;" and with that Divine in- 
coming, righteousness and peace, joy and hope, yea, 
heaven upon earth, shall be sweetly realized. 

It is with reluctance that I bring this inquiry to a close. 
The portrait drawn is too faulty and imperfect for it to 
afford me entire satisfaction. Yet such as it is I can in- 
voke God's blessing on it; for it was undertaken in His 
fear, and, however inadequate, is in accordance with His 
Word. Tradition records many interesting stories regard- 
ing the magnificent masterpiece of the sculptor Phidias. 
Out of the solid marble he shaped a wondrous image of 
the mighty Jupiter. The brow of the god was so noble, 
so fate-deciding seemed "the ambrosial locks "that clus- 
tered round it, so majestic his mien, and so commanding 
his presence, that they who beheld the work of the artist 
were lightened of care, were relieved of sorrow, and were 
so enchanted that they were willing to make long pilgrim- 
ages for the pleasure of viewing it again. Among other 
legends is found one of surpassing beauty touching the 
creator of this famous statue. It is said that when he 
had finished his labors and thoughtfully contemplated 
the result, he raised his hands in prayer to Jupiter and 
sought for an approving sign if what he had done was 
acceptable to him. The "Thunderer" replied. As Phid- 
ias stood with uplifted hands a gleam of lightning flashed 
suddenly through the roof of the temple, and for a mo- 
ment played upon the sacred floor. Then he knew his 



204 ISMS OLD AN'D NEW. 

toil had not been in vain. Thus do I meditate, though 
not with the. exultant satisfaction of the sculptor, the un- 
worthy counterpart of Christ which these rude words of 
mine have fashioned. I know the likeness is sadly inferior 
to the sublime original; yet such as it is, I implore some 
token that it is not displeasing to Him whose name is dear 
to my poor heart, and will be so forever. And if from 
His holy throne the fire that descended on the apostles 
when Pentecost was fully come shall rest on you, my 
reader, irradiating the temple of the soul, and from its 
altar flash in flame of righteousness, the response I seek 
will be vouchsafed and my reward will be complete. 



SPIRITUALISM. 

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be 
persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Luke xdi^ 31. 

" The oracles are dumb ; 
No voice of hideous hum 
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 
Apollo from his shrine 
Can no more divine, 
With hollow shriek, the steep of Delphos leaving. 
No nightly trance or breathed spell 
Inspires tlie pale-eyed priests from the prophetic cell." 

Milton. 

WHETHER history or parable, this Scripture inforces 
a very solemn and salutary lesson. Dives, the rep- 
resentative of Godless affluence, when reaping the fiery 
whirlwind of his folly, calls on Father Abraham to miti- 
gate his terrible agony, and to send Lazarus, if not to 
himself, at least to his five surviving brothers, that they 
may be dissuaded from coming to the place of torment. 
The sufferer is reminded that they who live on earth have 
Moses and the prophets for their guidance; or, in other 
words, enjoy the light of a heavenly revelation, and should 
give heed to its influence and instruction. But to this sug- 
gestion the rich man replies: "If one went unto them from 
the dead they w^ould repent." He seems to feel that a 
little special supernaturalism judiciously displayed in the 
interest of his brethren, a few ghosts effectively material- 
ized and sent from the spirit realm, would arrest attention 
and would necessarily promote reformation. Spectral ap- 
pearances, he doubtless thought, would overawe and alarm 
the indifferent, and a message from their phantom lips 

205 



206 ISMS OLD AKTD NEW. 

would decide them to embrace religion. In " the visions 
of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men," had not 
a spirit passed before the face of Eliphaz, the Temanite, 
and did not fear come on him, and his bones shake, as the 
solemn silence was broken by the strange voice inquiring: 
*' Shall mortal man be more just than God ? Shall a man 
be more pure than his Maker?" If so, why might not 
other shadowy messengers be sent to earth with profit, 
and be equally successful in impressing mortals with the 
reality of things eternal ? Some such line of argument 
probably occurred to Dives; but instead of its soundness 
being recognized in Hades, he is answered: "If they hear 
not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded 
though one rose from the dead ; " words that express 
clearly and explicitly the absolute sufficiency of the In- 
spired Books for life and godliness. 

It is, however, to be observed that the Savior in this 
declaration does not deny the possibility of the dead re- 
turning, under certain circumstances, to influence the 
living; neither does the Bible commit itself to any such 
denial. Indeed, its stringent laws against invoking their 
presence, and its wide-sweeping condemnation of all who 
attempt to bring them back, or who, impelled by idle 
curiosity, seek intercourse with them, seem to imply that 
those who have gone before may revisit and minister to 
friends on earth under conditions determined solely by the 
Almighty. We know that Moses and Elias were with 
Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, and that, when 
He arose from the tomb, many of the saints came with 
Him, and were seen in Jerusalem. Moreover, the apostle 
Paul, having described the faith of God's heroes, assures 
the Hebrews that they are surrounded by a great cloud of 
witnesses, evidently referring to those of whom he has 
been writing so eloquently, and who, though dead, are 
thus represented as feeling an interest in the career of all 



SPIRIT IXFLUEIs'CES. 207 

who are following on to know the Lord. Nor is it alto- 
gether incredible that such exalted beings, freed from the 
trammels of earthly life, should sometimes mingle with 
mortals whom they love, and who are yet exposed to sin 
and danger. Why may not the mother, through the misty 
veil that hides the seen from the unseen, find a way to 
direct the footsteps of her friendless child? Why may 
not lamented dear ones, whose visible forms have crum- 
bled into dust, still in spirit linger with us here, and, 
though unrecognized, assist us in our progress to the 
skies? Of course, much can be said against this view, 
but much, also, can be said in its favor, though probably 
not enough on either side to establish a positive convic- 
tion. Our Savior, in the parable, gives no information on 
the subject. He neither affirms nor denies, just as He 
expresses no opinion at this time on the kindred doctrine 
of angelic and demoniac influences. On this latter topic, 
however, on other occasions He speaks clearly; and from 
the tenor of His ministry, as well as from the testimony of 
the apostles, we learn that angels and devils stream into 
our world, and bring to bear on humanity the beneficence 
of heaven or the maleficence of hell. 

Lavater, as cited by Kurtz, declares " that all known 
material elements enter into the composition of the body, 
and all discernible spiritual faculties manifest themselves 
in the constitution of the soul, so that man is thus neces- 
sarily related to the visible and the invisible, to all things 
and all beings, not even excepting God himself." Con- 
stellations and galaxies transmit their fires to his thought, 
and magnetic currents from earth and sky flash along the 
nerve-wires of his wondrous organism. Suns, planets, and 
all the elemental material of this restless globe, are held in 
solution in his blood as it surges on its ministry of life and 
health. Atmospheres are the exhaustless fountains which 
slake his thirst, that support him with their might, and 



208 ISMS OLD ainTD new. 

that carry to him on their tireless energies the beneficence 
of remotest spheres, and waft from him the asphyxial ma- 
laria which perpetually threatens his existence. Man is 
as it were the meeting-place of waters, the bay toward 
which all tides, physical and spiritual, incline, the recipient 
and exponent of the universe, the exotery of its esoterics, 
the crown of its greatness, and the shekinah of its glory. 
And if, therefore, we may believe with Bulwer-Lytton that, 
as "millions and myriads" of lives "dwell in the rivers 
of man's blood, and inhabit his frame as he inhabits earth," 
so "the circumfluent, infinite and boundless impalpable 
which we call space " must be " filled with its correspond- 
ing and appropriate life," " creatures of surpassing wis- 
dom, or of horrible malignity, some of whom are hostile as 
fiends to men, and others as gentle as messengers between 
earth and heaven," we cannot deny the possibility of what 
Swedenborg taught, and what unimpassioned and inexcita- 
ble thousands among the devout have credited, " that man 
may be instructed by spirits and angels, may be in com- 
pany with them, and converse with them face to face." 
The possibility of such mysterious intercourse I would not 
for a moment presume to question. Man being what he 
is, and the universe being what it is, I think this commerce 
highly probable, and it may be necessary to explain many 
things in our personal experience, and in that of others, 
such as is recorded in Owen's Footfalh on the boundaries 
of Other Worlds and Howitt's History of the Supernatn- 
ral. But our Savior, in the parable which gives character 
to our present study, does not touch on these marvelous 
matters; nor does it come within the scope of my pro- 
posed inquiry to discuss them. He passes by them as irrele- 
vant and extraneous. His immediate object being to em- 
phasize the practical sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. 
He teaches clearly and specifically that, having God's 
Word, the race has everything that it really needs for 



PLUTOI^IA TEMPLES. 209 

moral and religious guidance, and that all the sleepers in 
the sepulcher, and all the shades in Hades, could they by 
any process be recalled to earth, whatever they might do 
for human comfort and human progress would not bring 
with them either increase of knowledge or of spiritual 
power. This is my own conviction, and its reasonableness 
will, I think, appear in the course of this discussion. 

The human mind has not always been favorably dis- 
posed toward so conservative a belief. From time imme- 
morial it has not been entirely willing that God's supreme 
wisdom should decide how far, if at all, the spectral world 
should hold communion with this mundane sphere; nei- 
ther has it been content to leave unexplored the myste- 
rious continent, which He has veiled from mortal sight, 
and which he has fortified against irreverent curiosity. 
The boundaries of the undiscovered country have repeat- 
edly been trodden by restless inquisitiveness, anxious to 
catch the sound of supernatural footfalls, and to learn 
from spirit tongues what shall be in the future here, or 
what makes up the wonders of the never-changing here- 
after. To go no farther back than the palmy days of 
Greece, we meet with instances innumerable of attempted 
intercourse with the dead. Among the people of that 
cultivated nation, temples, called Plutonia, were con- 
secrated to this object. Within their walls it was 
professedly maintained between the souls of former and 
existing generations. Rites conducive to such inter- 
change of thought and influence were established and 
scrupulously observed; but by what theurgy, sortilege, or 
incantatory hocus-pocus the deception succeeded as it did 
we have now no means of determining. Maximus Tyrius 
throws a little light on the ceremonies connected with 
Grecian necromancy where he writes: ''There was a place 
near Lake Avernus called the prophetic cavern. Persons 
were in attendance there who called up ghosts. Anyone 
14 



210 ISMS OLD AND IS^EW. 

desiring it came thither, and, having killed a victim and 
poured out libations, summoned whatever ghost he 
wanted. The ghost came very faint and doubtful to the 
sight, but vocal and prophetic; and, having answered the 
questions, went off." Considerable sums of money were 
also spent in obtaining the spectral ear, and the profits of 
those who engaged in the business — the professional go- 
betweens — were simply enormous. In Israel this species 
of superstition was not unpracticed. Saul sought an in- 
terview with the shade of Samuel; and some writers, 
among whom may be named Sir Henry More, believe that 
his desire was really gratified. But be that as it may, the 
rigid enactments against every kind of divination go to 
prove how strong a hold it had upon certain classes, and 
how difficult it was to convince them of its sinfulness and 
folly. 

One of the poets has the thought: 

" If ancestry can be in aught believed, 
Descending spirits have conversed with man 
And told him secrets of the world unknown." 

Unfortunately they have been too implicitly credited, be- 
yond even the warrant of facts, and hence many of our 
contemporaries clamor at the gates of the Invisible for 
fresh communications and new revelations. Unwilling to 
receive merely what graciously may be conferred, they 
imagine they have the power to wring from spirit-hearts 
the secret of their dwelling-place. And this, too, in an 
age that assumes to be remarkably free from bondage to 
superstition; and what is even more singular, they who 
most greedily swallow every marvelous story about ghosts 
are least disposed to recognize the divine origin of the 
Bible. In the name of reason they reject a supernatural- 
ly given book, and at the next moment, with a credulity 
becoming a Weddah of Ceylon, they surrender their 
judgment captive to some contemptible school of magic. 



MODEKN KECKOMANCY. 211 

As Dr. Carpenter says, " The greatest skeptics in religion 
are the most credulous in other matters." They are gen- 
erally like the lady to whom he refers, ready to receive 
anything that is not in the Bible. Not a few among our 
Roman Catholic friends believe that they are authorized 
to pray to the sainted dead, and that the Virgin Mary is 
especially accessible to their supplications. I have great 
respect for many who cherish this conviction; but, after all, 
the line that separates it from ancient necromancy is very 
indistinct. It is the old black art baptised and rechris- 
tened, in which spiritual solicitations are substituted for 
spells and sorceries. That departed friends may be made 
by God the medium of blessings to the living is not the 
objectionable feature of the doctrine, for the possibility of 
this is candidly conceded; it is the underlying assumption 
that mortal entreaties can determine the movements of 
immortal beings, causing them to reappear among the 
faithful, that is so repugnant to the higher reason, and 
irreconcilable with the Inspired Word. It makes the dead 
servants to the living. It converts the Virgin into a very 
restless, busy soul, wandering from place to place for the 
sake of rewarding her devotees with a sight of her pale 
and hazy person; it changes the beatified into phantom 
tramps, peripatetic shades, spectral gossips, whose earthly 
peregrinations are controlled exclusively by the church 
and her members, and for their benefit. 

Spiritualism is the latest and most pronounced develop- 
ment of this morbid and mortuary superstition. Its multi- 
plied adherents regard its rejection by Christians, whc 
believe in the supernatural, as inexplicable and indefensi- 
ble. They affect not to understand the reasons which 
influence these disciples, and they generally fail to account 
fairly for their alleged inconsistency. If I may be per- 
mitted to speak for these misapprehended, not to say 
maligned, skeptics, I venture the assertion that they are 



212 ISMS OLD AI^^D NEW. 

not actuated by doubt as to the reality of the supernatu- 
ral, and neither are they swayed by devotion to mere 
materialistic theories. The wonderful results which have 
been brought about in the name of this Ism they are not 
disposed to ignore; they are willing to admit that they 
cannot explain them all by laws or forces fully known 
at present; but they insist that the explanations of those 
who constantly resort to the marvelous are equally unsub- 
stantial and unsatisfactory. They likewise object to this 
apparitional hypothesis, that it is an endeavor to organize 
a sect or religion, a science or philosophy, on a principle 
condemned alike by Scripture and the sober judgment of 
mankind. The principle, if in reality it deserves the name, 
is that human action is only the reflex of spiritual action, 
and that by a species of legerdemain and of cheap wizard- 
ry the relation which the one sustains to the other can be 
ascertained, and the dead be invoked and governed by 
shrewd manipulators in the interests of the living. Chris- 
tians cannot but look on such a system as essentially 
deceptive, as a kind of charlatanism, as the residuum of 
former attempts at worthless magic, and as the black art 
scantily disguised and slightly modernized. As a philoso- 
phy they find it proclaiming the crudest metaphysics, con- 
sisting of cloudy notions and easily corrigible errors; as a 
science they perceive that it is little better than a farrago 
of ghoulish stories, accepted on the slimmest evidence, and 
wrought out fancifully and vaguely; and as a religion it is 
to them a mixture of puerility and stolidity, a superficial, 
superfluous and superstitious speculation. To embody 
their criticisms in the form of propositions, they maintain, 
what I shall attempt to make good, — 

First, That the alleged marvels of Spiritualism are 
unverifiable, and, therefore, are unentitled to confidence. 

Second, That the so-called revelations of Spiritualism 



ANCIENT WONDERS. 213 

are unimportant, and, therefore, are undeserving of con- 
sideration. 

Third, That the practical bearings of Spiritualism are 
unbeneficial, and, therefore, are unworthy of countenance. 

In discussing the first of these propositions, let it not 
be forgotten that the extraordinary occurrences which dis- 
tinguish this phantasmal Ism are not without parallels in 
the past. They are not new. Many of them were wit- 
nessed in other ages, and have been chronicled for our 
instruction. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, as 
quoted by Mr. D. D. Home, the ancients employed a small 
table for purposes of divination; and Planchettes, with 
their attendant phenomena, are no novelty among the 
Chinese. The reported transfiguration of Imblichus was 
just as wonderful and just as credible as modern mate- 
rializations. Among the Greeks and Romans the black 
art was surrounded with what appeared to the credu- 
lous miraculous attestations ; and even at this remote 
period we find it difficult to account for them on any other 
hypothesis. And yet, thoughtful men who lived in those 
times did not hesitate to ascribe them to fraud and trick- 
ery, or to natural means, the secret of which was confined 
to a few initiated individuals. Juvenal satirized all super- 
human communications, and argued that belief in their 
reality was really due to ignorance of the nervous princi- 
ple, which enabled the practiced fortune-teller to gain a 
knowledge of the thought in the mind of those who con- 
sulted him. Horace ridiculed those who gave heed to 
spiritual manifestations, and characterized them as diseased 
and fanatical. The Gumeean sibyl tells the Trojan ^neas 
as much about his family as any modern medium could; 
and from the shade of his father, Anchises, he receives 
responses as remarkable as any that have ever purported 
to come from the dead in our day; and yet the poet 
Virgil, who describes it all, does not seem to have confi- 



214 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

dence in this kind of supernaturalism ; for he calls the 
maiden possessed of prophetic frenzy " deranged in intel- 
lect." Pliny, the naturalist, is also instructive on these 
points, for, while he admits some shade of truth in the 
mystic art, he attributes its phenomena mainly to physical 
causes. At last even the common people abandoned 
pagan temple and necromancer's cavern, satisfied that, 
while they could not explain the strange things enacted, 
there was more of imposture connected with them than 
could be reconciled with their superhuman claims. Nearer 
to our own times we have the witchcraft craze, which was 
attended by marvels, traceable, according to the testimony 
of such men as Lord Bacon, Sir Matthew Hale, Bishop 
Jewell and Addison to occult agencies. Among the won- 
ders that marked this excitement we have unaccountable 
movements of various objects, such as chests, beds, and 
smaller articles ; rappings, scratchings, and drummings; 
sounds as of steps on the floor, or of clattering chairs and 
stools, and the transportation of possessed persons, sup- 
posed to be on their way to demoniacal festivities. Igno- 
rant people and people of small mental capacity were 
suddenly qualified to speak with grace and intelligence; 
others exhibited mysterious knowledge, similar to that 
which is often met with in modern clairvoyants; and yet 
others confessed to having seen specters with their eyes 
shut as well as open. Fuller information than can be 
given here on this interesting subject may be obtained 
from Lecky's History of Rationalism^ Mather's Magna- 
Ua, Chamberline's Stone-throvjing Devil, Bancroft's United 
States, and from a curious book published in 1852, entitled 
To Daimonion. That this entire movement was marked 
by astounding events no one familiar with it will deny, 
but that it can only be explained by recourse to the super- 
natural very few will admit. Self-de*ception, nervous dis- 
order, the operation of unknown physical forces, even a 



SPIRITUALISTIC CHICAKERY. 215 

measure of fraud, can more readily be believed than that. 
There is something so inherently incredible in the supposi- 
tion that all these eccentric and useless occurrences were 
the work of devils or of ghosts that the mind hesitates to 
give it entertainment. And if it is obliged to reject such 
an account as untenable, is it not reasonable to conclude 
that similar wonders in our own day may be explicable on 
some other hypothesis than that of spirit agency ? 

That such an origin is at least unverifiable is proven 
by the impostures which continually are being perpetrated 
in the name of this Ism. Even the very elect are de- 
ceived. The trickery employed is so cunningly devised 
and cleverly executed that the most devout sympathizers 
hardly know how to separate the wheat from the chaif. 
The materializations which took place in Philadelphia some 
years since will readily be recalled. Hands which shone 
like phosphorus appeared, and did not seem to be attached 
to any body; and the alleged spirit who came most fre- 
quently from the cabinet was clothed in shining raiment 
that reminded Mr. Owen of the Savior's transfiguration. 
Before all eyes this phantom faded away, or was seen to 
float in the air. During many sittings Mr. Owen and Dr. 
Childs applied every test to determine the real character 
of the phenomenon. Yet this most remarkable Katie 
King affair turned out to be a fraud. The gentlemen re- 
ferred to admitted the deception, and when the means 
were produced by which it was effected they were found 
to be very simple. In 1844 a similar exposure took place 
in London. A clairvoyant from Paris, called Alexis, car- 
ried on his trade for a little time with singular success, 
until he fell into the hands of Drs. Carpenter and Forbes, 
who penetrated his wiles and revealed his occult arts. 
The former gentleman has contributed considerable in- 
formation regarding the methods by which the public are 
gulled and cheated, and what he has written in Fraser^s 



216 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

Magazine (February and March, 1877) and in his Mental 
Physiology is worthy serious consideration. Mr. D. D. 
Home, himself a Spiritualist, has also rendered good ser- 
vice in exposing the clever manoeuvres of Machiavelian 
prophets, who in a peculiar sense profess to stand "be- 
tween the living and the dead." In his valuable work en- 
titled Lights and Shadoios of Spiritualism he expresses 
the liveliest contempt for seances held in the dark, for 
"materializations," "cabinet" jugglery, and other profane 
"manifestations." He relates many instances of decep- 
tion, and among them one that shows the extreme cre- 
dulity of our modern wonder-monger. It seems he was 
present when an adept held up a mask at the window of a 
cabinet. " I called," he says, " the attention of an ardent 
Spiritualist beside me to the empty and eyeless sockets. 
His reply came promptly and with a certain degree of 
triumph: *The dear spirits have not had time to mate- 
rialize the eyes.'" There's simplicity for you, ingenuous 
faith, and guileless trust! Can it be that we are to be 
censured for not receiving the testimony of individuals 
who thus invite imposture, and who seem utterly unfitted 
to discriminate between truth and error? These dreary 
illustrations of folly I have no desire to multiply, and 
consequently I will not refer to the familiar instances of 
mendacious empiricism associated with tiie Davenports, 
Sunderlands, and Maxwells. The examples given are all- 
sufficient to make good the position that we cannot hope 
to prove the supernatural source of any spiritualistic mar- 
vels when so many of them are impostures. If there are 
any true they are so much like the counterfeit that even 
experts cannot with certainty distinguish the one from 
the other, and novices may therefore be excused if they 
reject them all as alike unverifiable. 

According to the London Spiritualist (March 2, 1877), 
Mr. W. Stainton Moses criticised Spiritualism, in which 



COUNTERFEITS EXPOSED. 217 

he is a firm believer, in these terms: "It does very little 
in the way of scientific verification. Moreover, exoteric 
Spiritualism is, to a large extent, devoted to presumed 
communion with personal friends, or to the gratification 
of curiosity, or to a mere evolution of marvels. . . . Spirit- 
ualists start with a fallacy, namely, that all phenomena are 
caused by the action of departed human spirits. They 
have not looked into the powers of the human spirit; they 
do not know the extent to which spirit acts, how far it 
reaches, what it underlies." This is precisely the weak- 
ness of the whole system. It takes for granted that hu- 
man agency is inadequate, and yet it has no just measure- 
ment of what such agency can accomplish. Most of the 
startling effects produced by its adherents have been dupli- 
cated by skillful persons who disavow all connection with 
the preternatural. A remarkable illustration of this was 
furnished recently by Rev. Arthur A. Waite, who, having 
been a medium, claimed that he would duplicate any feat 
that the friends of this Ism could succeed in accomplish- 
ing. His challenge was accepted, and the trial came off 
in Tremont Temple, Boston. President Washburn gave 
a very interesting account of the contest in the Independ- 
ent^ and from it we learn that Mr. Waite met the medium 
and actually repeated and explained every one of his 
tricks, and that his adversary was compelled to retreat 
in confusion. 

Now, I am persuaded by what was done by Mr. Waite 
at Tremont Temple that an inventive and skilled presti- 
digitateur, such as Robert Houdin, could with a little 
study re-enact the mysteries that jDerplexed the involved 
intellect of Joseph Cook, or the other misty marvels which 
have excited so much comment of late among the savants 
of Leipsic. As for the simpler and more commonplace 
wonders, they have been repeated so frequently that they 
have ceased to attract attention, and are readily under- 



218 ISMS OLD AKB KEW. 

stood by the merest tyro. For instance, no one now is 
startled by the writing phenomenon, in which the medium 
reads what is being written with the point of the pen en- 
tirely concealed from his sight. This performance once 
occasioned considerable surprise, but it does so no longer; 
for it is not difficult to explain. The top of the pen is not 
hidden, and the educated eye, following its motions, can 
tell what letters the point is forming. Mind-reading also 
has lost its marvelous aspect since such demonstrators as 
Mr. Browne have illustrated how it is done. In the case 
of this well-known lecturer, he will think of an object in 
any place you may think of it; he will lead you to the 
spot where you have concealed any article, and he will 
follow the course of a watch through half a dozen hands 
to the right person. If he can do so without ghosts, who 
shall say that ghosts are ever necessary ? 

Dr. Carpenter tells us that many persons agree in stat- 
ing that a Mr. Home was seen sailing in the air out of one 
window and in at another; and that a Mrs. Guppy was 
conveyed in a trance through the air from Highbury Park 
to Lambs' Conduit street. Here, assuredly, we have a 
miracle that natural causes cannot explain ! So it would 
seem. Yet, admitting that the feat was really accom- 
plished, we learn from Madam Blavatsky, in Jsis Un- 
veiled (vol. i, p. 495), that levitation can be produced 
without the interposition of spirit agencies. She says the 
fakir effects it by the power of his aspiration and will. 
*' So does the priest of Siam, when, in the sacred pagoda, 
he mounts fifty feet in the air with taper in hand and flits 
from idol to idol, lighting up the niches, self-supported, 
and stepping as confidently as though he were upon solid 
ground. . . . The officers of the Russian squadron in 
Japanese waters relate the fact that, besides many other 
marvels, they saw jugglers walk in mid-air from tree-top 
to tree-top without the slightest support." Of course I 



MIND AND MATTER. 219 

do not know how this is done, but it is clear that it does 
not necessarily involve the supernatural. I might refer 
to other wonders, but it would be only to match them 
with others which the ingenuity of man has paralleled. 
These are certainly sufficient to indicate that human re- 
sources transcend the limits placed on them by Spiritualists, 
and that, were they understood, most of these mysteries 
would be cleared up entirely. We know that mind acts on 
mind sometimes without the medium of the body; and it is 
not improbable that mind also can act directly upon matter, 
as has recently been maintained in England and Ger- 
many, thus making it subject to the supremacy of unfet- 
tered volition. As a German scientist has surmised, most 
likely there are undiscovered properties of matter, and 
that many of these phenomena may be the result of their 
activities, or, as Joseph Cook argued, of an unknown 
force, called the psychic force, which asserts itself under 
peculiar conditions. Who knows ? We concede our ig- 
norance; but as long as we see spiritualistic marvels 
duplicated, and as long as the probability is as strong as 
it is that there are resources in humanity adequate to their 
production, we shall feel that their claim to supernatural 
origin is as yet unverified. 

Nor is this conclusion unreasonable. When Descartes, 
long before the triumphs of this materialistic age, wrote 
these memorable sentences: "The experience which I 
have in physics teaches me that it is possible to arrive at 
a knowledge of many things which will be very usefui to 
life; and that we may yet discover methods by which 
man, comprehending the force and the action of fire, 
water, air, stars, skies, and all the other bodies which en- 
viron us, as distinctly as we comprehend the different 
trades of our artisans, shall be able to employ them in the 
same fashion for all the uses to which they are appropri- 
ate, and thus shall render himself master and possessor of 



220 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

nature," he seems to have anticipated a deeper insight 
into the heart of things than had been attained in his day. 
His prophecy has been more than fulfilled; and yet even 
now those who are most profoundly versed in science will, 
to adopt the subsequent words of Descartes, *' confess 
that all they know is almost nothing in comparison with 
what remains to be known." No statement more fully 
commands, or more readily receives, assent than this. 
We are all promjDt enough to adopt it; and yet when we 
are brought face to face with some inexplicable sleight-of- 
hand performance, it is expected that we shall immedi- 
ately set up the cry of " ghost, ghost ! " Now I see no 
necessity for any such thing. The telegraph, the phono- 
graph, the microphone, the telephone, and a score of 
other inventions, remind us that we have only crossed the 
threshold of nature, and that there are deep hidden in its 
courts secrets as extraordinary as any that have been con- 
quered, and which in time must yield their treasures. 
Until we have carried our explorations much farther than 
we have at present, and have fixed more definitely the 
boundaries of the natural, I for one will not abandon my 
firm conviction that neither demons nor ghosts, angels nor 
devils, are necessary to account for the strange signs 
which are paraded in the name of a magic-loving hy- 
pothesis. 

Nor is our confidence strengthened in the super-mun- 
dane character of this Ism when we judge it by its reve- 
lations. We have said that they are unimportant; they are 
satisfactory neither to skeptics nor believers. Blavatsky 
admits that "The great majority of spiritual communica- 
tions are calculated to disgust investigators of even mod- 
erate intelligence. Even when genuine they are trivial, 
commonplace, and often vulgar. During the past twenty 
years we have received, through various mediums, mes- 
sages purporting to be from Shakspeare, Byron, Franklin, 



i 



THE GHOST OF PERICLES. 221 

Peter the Great, Napoleon and Josephine, and even from 
Voltaire. The general impression made upon us was that 
the French conqueror and his consort seemed to have 
forgotten how to spell words correctly; Shakspeare and 
Byron had become chronic inebriates, and Voltaire had 
turned an imbecile." Mr. Home gravely relates various 
stories concerning the subjects which engage the atten- 
tion of super-mundane beings, and which are not of a very 
exalted character. He says that the shade of an old lady 
in gray silk complained to a medium that a coffin had been 
placed upon the top of the one which contained her mortal 
remains. This weighty affair seems to have occasioned 
her great solicitude. He also pathetically tells how a little 
phantom girl, Stella, comforted her mother by writing her 
own name on her boots, "the light summer ones." What 
consolation there may have been to the afflicted parent in 
this boot-marking performance I cannot perceive, but to 
my way of thinking it is absolutely grotesque. It would 
seem from such cases that death makes sad havoc with 
common sense, and that it leads the departed to do what 
they never would have undertaken when in the flesh. Dr. 
Felton, once president of Harvard, in his Loicell Institute 
Lectures, having written about Pericles, says he invoked 
his ghost in a Boston circle, and that the famous Greek 
favored him by taking possession of the medium. "I put 
to him a series of questions about Athens in his time; but 
he had not only lost the knowledge of all that he had ever 
done during the forty years of his administration, but he 
had even forgotten his mother tongue. I could only ex- 
claim with Hamlet: 'Alas! poor ghost!' and turn again 
to my books." Gerald Massey, in his tractate on this sub- 
ject, does not give a very encouraging view of these reve- 
lations. He writes: "A large number of impostors have 
left our world to go somewhere, and possibly they still find 
us more easily imposed on than their new acquaintance, 



222 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

who are able to see through them, whereas we are so often 
left in the dark." ^'The spirits can say what they like, 
assume to be what they please." If we can rely on the 
testimony of this author, we can never be sure that the 
so-called phantom that addresses us is not an impostor, 
and even when it claims to be mother, daughter, friend, 
it may be willfully misleading us. Such communications, 
then, must be absolutely worthless. Gerald Massey also 
says that "there is a mind-realm in the invisible world, 
and that the ignorant and trifling may return to delude." 
On this point Mr. Wallace, the scientist to whom I have 
referred in a previous discourse, has written some note- 
worthy words. In The Fortnightly Revieio, during the 
summer of 1874, he published a very able paper, from 
which we give a few extracts: "Many scientific men deny 
the spiritual source of the manifestations on the ground 
that real, genuine spirits might reasonably be supposed 
not to indulge in the commonplace trivialities which do un- 
doubtedly form the staple of ordinary spiritual communi- 
cations. . . . And if a very large majority of those who 
daily depart this life are persons addicted to twaddle, 
persons who spend most of their time in low or trivial 
pursuits, persons whose pleasures are sensual rather than 
intellectual, whence is to come the transforming power 
which is suddenly, at the mere throwing off of the physical 
body, to change these into beings able to appreciate and 
delight in high intellectual pursuits?" He says such a 
change would be a miracle; but are not the very commu- 
nications themselves miracles? If the first is incredible 
on .this ground, the second is fairly objectionable for the 
same reason. He also suggests that these inferior beings 
visit earth because the circles are generally "a miscellane- 
ous assemblage of believers of various grades and tastes, 
but most in search of an evening's amusement, and of 
skeptics who look upon all the others as either fools or 



SPIRITUALISTIC COMMUNICATIONS. 223 

knaves"; and he argues that such companies are not apt 
to attract "the more elevated and refined denizens of the 
higher spheres." If he is correct in his estimate of the 
phantoms who reveal themselves, as wise men always avoid 
such people when living, they may be excused if they pre- 
fer not to associate with them after they are dead. But 
surely Mr Wallace overlooks the fact that, in a large num- 
ber of instances, the spirits of Washington, Poe, Newton, 
Plato, Cicero, grace the seances with their presence, and 
that any of them may be invoked. Should he say that 
most likely they are counterfeited, then we are again con- 
fronted with deception, and under such circumstances may 
well choose to have nothing to do with these knavish appa- 
ritions. One other passage from Mr. Wallace: "Nothing- 
is more common than for religious people at seances to 
ask questions about God and Christ. In reply they never 
get more than opinions, or more frequently the statement 
that they, the spirits, have no more knowledge of these 
subjects than they had while on earth." On the united 
testimony, then, of these disinterested witnesses we may 
form a just estimate of the value to be attached to spiritual 
communications. They are not reliable; they are trivial; 
they are twaddle; from this source no addition has been 
made to the world's stock of knowledge; religiously, sci- 
entifically, it has contributed no facts, no information, no 
explanations, — only gossip, garrulity, guesses, — and we 
cannot but regard such revelations as eminently unsatis- 
factory; indeed, so unsatisfactory that Pythagorean silence 
would be preferable, and we need have no hesitation in 
attributing them to earth, not to heaven. 

And yet many intelligent people insist on the impor- 
tance of this Ism to society. It is urged that to its influ- 
ence may be traced the survival of faith in the immortality 
of the soul. Were it not for the constant intercourse 
between this world and the beyond, it is argued, present 



224 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

Materialism would smother and extinguish hope of a future 
eternal life. I am of the opposite opinion. If that future 
existence may be judged by the disclosures made of it by 
its representatives — if we are to judge of it by Bacon, 
who is credited with recent essays which are unworthy a 
child, or by Clay and Webster, whose speeches from the 
shades would not have secured them the approval of their 
fellow-citizens if they had been delivered here on earth — 
we may conclude, with Hamilton, " that they are souls in 
the process of losing their mental powers, souls fading 
away, souls destined soon to become extinct," and under 
such circumstances certainly eternity is not attractive 
enough to elicit desire for its possession, or to convince a 
skeptic that it is deserving any effort to obtain. It rather 
makes against the dignity and the reality of immortality, 
and so rather disposes men to live for the present than for 
the future. 

Its influence is further objectionable on other grounds. 
It will hardly be denied that in many extreme cases it has 
weakened domestic ties, sympathized with the doctrine of 
elective affinity, spiritual marriages, and other abomina- 
tions. Like a remorseless cataract, thundering and howl- 
ing, it has not only beat violently and destructively against 
many sacred interests of society, but h has enveloped 
others in mist, and blinded many eyes to the distinction 
between right and wrong. An intelligent committee of 
Spiritualists, reporting at Cleveland, 1867, on certain ex- 
cesses, said: "Many, if not all, of the disorderly manifes- 
tations your committee deem wholly unspiritual, having 
their origin in half-controlled nervous diseases, poor diges- 
tion, torpid liver, and general discord of mind and body." 
Very likely this is a true account of the matter. Bodily 
convulsions also distinguished witchcraft. Pliny, Galen, 
and others of the ancients, regarded the magical art as 
physically injurious; and we are certainly warranted in 



SPIRITUALISM AliTD CHRISTIANITY. 225 

characterizing a system as pernicious which undermines 
bodily vigor, and fatally deranges the courses of nature. 
I admit that there are many holding to Spiritualism who 
are not involved in these evils; but were their number 
greater, still the terrible effects of the system on the few 
may well justify our doubt of its wholesomeness. More- 
over, its drift is undesirable considered from another 
standpoint. It is radically anti-Christian. By many of 
its advocates Christ is represented simply as a medium; 
the inspiration of the Scriptures is denied, and its essen- 
tial doctrines rejected. Perhaps the famous, or rather the 
infamous, Rutland Convention may be taken as a fair sam- 
ple of this antagonism. Mr. Wallace, alluding to this 
solecism, asks, "How is it that the usual orthodox ideas 
of heaven are never confirmed through these mediums? 
There is no more startling a radical opposition to be 
found among the diverse religious creeds than that which 
the majority of mediums have been brought up in, and 
the doctrines as to a future life which have been delivered 
through them." And we may add the inquiry : How 
comes it that they so continuously deny other matters of 
revelation, such as the fall of man, the incarnation of 
Christ, His divinity, the efficacy of His sacrifice, and 
human regeneration ? Their influence is against Chris- 
tianity. Why ? If it is suggested that the spirits, having 
been admitted into eternity, know whereof they testify, I 
must be allowed to reply that, according to their earthly 
representatives and friends, they are generally a good-for- 
nothing set, given to twaddle and deception, whose word, 
consequently, is not deserving of confidence. We cannot 
think that very many of our fellow-beings are shallow 
enough to yield to such questionable testimony; but it 
should never be overlooked in judging the system that 
its drift is in opposition to all that we hold most real 
and true. 

15 



226 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

It has already been intimated during this discussion 
that the Scriptures recognize the existence of a vast spirit- 
ual empire, whose borders lie near to our own world, but 
forbid all efforts on our part to pry into its secrets, or by 
our devices to bring its inhabitants hither. " We are not 
to seek, those who have familiar spirits, and unto wizards 
that peep and mutter." (Isaiah vii; Deut. xviii.) For 
such prohibition there must be sufficient reasons. The 
first doubtless is, that God knows best how much of super- 
natural influence we can bear, and would regulate it in 
harmony with our capacity, our weakness, and necessities. 
He has no desire to convert the earth into a mad-house, to 
unseat the reason, or to shatter our poor understanding. 
We are not only overawed by many of the terrific exhibi- 
tions of nature's forces, but sometimes feel utterly crushed 
before them. How, then, could we hope to stand before a 
lawless, uncontrollable influx of spirits, with their bewilder- 
ing revelations, and their sublime manifestations ? Even 
the belief that they are near, the imaginary communion 
with them, and the allusion that they can be summoned, 
have proven too much for ordinary intellects. The strain 
of such wild fancies has unsettled the mind; what, then, 
would the reality be ? Spiritualism not only disregards 
this divine prohibition, and in doing so attempts to usurp 
God's prerogative, but in its profane recklessness fills the 
soul with damaging fancies. On this ground, also, it is 
pernicious. Another reason, doubtless, that sanctions this 
restriction on restless curiosity is to be found in the impor- 
tance which God has attached to the development of man's 
own resources. Having given sufficient light in the Bible 
for all necessary purposes, enough to serve as an impulse 
to thought, man is left to investigate, to train his native 
powers in the domain of inquiry, and to rise through his 
own endeavors. If angels are sent to strengthen, or saint- 
ed friends to comfort, their ministry is so ordered as to 



I 



THE TRUE HAPPIN'ESS. 227 

harmonize with this fundamental idea. They help without 
superseding; and they direct so gently that they never 
divert the creature from his own responsibility. Spiritual- 
ism, in reality, ignores this arrangement. It is a short, 
convenient road to knowledge. It tends to paralyze effort, 
and hence the large number of dreamy, visionary individ- 
uals who make up its circles and compose its conventions, 
who ramble in t'heir talk, and by their general incoherence 
create the impression that they are nerveless and aimless. 
This emasculating, debilitating and prostrating influence, 
this weakness, languor and effeminacy, are among the 
most striking signs of its inability to bless the race, and of 
its purely mundane origin and character. And on this 
account, if on no other, it should be set aside by thought- 
ful people as unworthy their attention and their coun- 
tenance. 

But if not to this spectral superstition, to w^hom or to 
w^hat shall we go that we may obtain the words of eternal 
life ? Permit a Russian idyl to fashion a reply. There 
were three brothers who lived near the Black Sea. Not 
satisfied with their own country, they proposed to go in 
search of happiness. They said behind the forest there is 
a mountain, behind the mountain there is a great blue sea, 
and beyond the sea there are wealthy cities, and doubtless 
there the birds sing more sw^eetly, and there are treasures 
of joy known not in our land. So they saddled their 
horses, their good black horses, took their lances, and set 
off on their journey. The eldest brother and the one next 
in age wandered over the hills, and maybe are wandering 
still, but happiness they have never found. The youngest 
did not go far when his heart failed him and he retraced 
his steps. As his horse's head was homeward turned 
all nature seemed to say, " Thou hast done well ; " and 
when he arrived at the door of his house he beheld a maiden 
at the threshold spinning, and he asked the maiden with 



228 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

the golden hair, " Who art thou ? " and she answered, as 
smiles stole from her brown eyes, " I am happiness! " Ye 
restless ones, ye who would penetrate worlds unknown to 
satisfy your souls, ye who are weary of earth, and the 
wonders of a gracious providence, hear this: cross the 
phantom mountains and seek the ghostly cities, but your 
quest will only multiply sorrow and increase your gloom. 
Return! There, sitting at thy door, is one fairer than 
woman, more radiant than angels; her benign aspect is 
assuring; her hands are filled with works of beneficence; 
and in her eyes is the deep azure of heaven's love. " Who 
art thou?" *' Christianity," she answers, "the daughter 
of eternity, the sister of humanity, the mother of hope. I 
am happiness, peace and joy." Sit thou at her feet, and 
within the influence of her all-composing calmness thine 
all-disturbing activity shall be gently soothed into quiet- 
ness and peace; there shall thy weary soul find rest and 
bliss. 



SKEPTICISM 

" Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of 
the truth." 2 Timothy Hi, 7. 

" Rent from the startled gaze the veil of Night, 
O'er old delusions streams the dawning light; 
Man breaks his bonds — ah, blest could he refrain, 
Free from the curb, to scorn alike the rein ! 
'Freedom!' shouts Reason, 'Freedom!' wild Desire — 
And light to Wisdom is to Passion fire.* 
From Nature's check bursts forth one hurtling swarm — 
Ah, snaps the anchor, as descends the storm ! 
The sea runs mountains — vanishes the shore, 
The mastless wreck drifts endless ocean o'er; 
Lost — Faith — man's polar star !" 

Lytton's Schiller. 

LAPLACE, the brilliant author of The Mecaniqiie 
Celeste^ whose thought eagle-winged and eagle- 
eyed surveyed the pathless immensity of the universe, is 
a sad example of that unhappy inability so tersely de- 
scribed by the apostle in our text. Born in an age of 
religious doubt, he lived in a state of mental unquiet and 
unrest. He seemed incapable of arriving at any settled 
conclusions regarding God and immortality. The spirit 
of the infinitesimal calculus, which Napoleon said he car- 
ried into business, also inspired and influenced him in his 
dealings with invisible realities. At times he gravitated 
toward Atheism, criticised what he w^as pleased to con- 
sider imperfections in the structure and order of earth and 
heaven, and ascribed faith and worship to ignorant credu- 
lity or to cruel imposture. At other times he expressed 
dissatisfaction with these opinions; and when approaching 

229 



230 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

death, with gloomy discontent, confessed the enormous- 
ness of human ignorance, and in effect retracted what he 
had previously advocated. In a curious little book enti- 
tled Things Not Generally Knoion there is recorded an 
interviev^ which occurred during his last days, between 
himself and an English philosopher, Prof. Sedgwick, in 
which the dying astronomer, having spoken of the reli- 
gious endowments of England, said : " On this point I 
deprecate any great organic changes in your system; for 
I have lived long enough to know what at one time I did 
not believe — that no society can be upheld in happiness 
and honor without the sentiments of religion." And yet 
there is no evidence that even then he perceived clearly 
or grasped firmly the verities of theology, or esteemed 
them otherwise than as useful measures of effective gov- 
ernment, or, at the most, as vague shadows of obscure 
ideas, the twilight of an indefinite, awful something in the 
universe, back of its phenomena, which had eluded the 
searching tests of his mathematics. Ever learning and 
ever oscillating, his mind in a constant state of unquiet 
itching and of troubled flux, fluctuating and floundering, 
he seems to have passed away without having corrie to the 
knowledge of the truth on those subjects, which of all 
others are most intimately related to the well-being and 
progress of humanity. And many, like Laplace, remain 
in suspense all their days, vacillating between theories, 
unsettled in faith, at times half persuaded, then utterly 
rejecting; and, at last, dying unresolved, carry their 
doubts with them into that eternity where the interroga- 
tory mark is never found darkening the punctuation of 
spirit-speech. 

Skepticism exists under two forms: the permanent and 
the transient. The former is termed " systematic," " dog- 
matic," or "speculative;" the latter "experimental," or 
"practical;" and the first is more subtle and dangerous, 



DEFIJ^ITIONS AND distin"ctio:n^s. 231 

though not more distressing and depressing, than the 
second. Systematic or philosophic skepticism is the apo- 
theosis of incertitude, the canonization of doubt, the 
beatification of ignorance. Its world is a combination of 
mirage and phantasmagoria, inhabited by a dim-visioned, 
short-sighted, color-blind race, who are being constantly 
befooled by their senses, and by the varying phenomena 
which surround them. Such a conception as this I have 
no desire to discuss; neither would I again undertake the 
thankless task of vindicating the trustworthiness of 
nature and the reliableness of man's faculties from the 
aspersions of this Ism. This has already been done in the 
discourse on Agnosticism, and need not be repeated. 
But it may not be amiss to remember, if the universe 
cannot but defy our explorations, and if there is no key 
fitted to the sinuosities of the soul, and if, as is assumed, 
everything is uncertain but uncertainty, no conceivable 
argument could hope to prevail against such a theory, and 
time would only be wasted in attempting to frame one. 

The other form of skepticism is more tangible, more 
general, and more deserving of thoughtful and immediate 
attention. Unlike the first, it is not a system, nor a phi- 
losophy, but a mood, temper, or state of the intellect — a 
suspense of judgment, a sense of confusion and perplexity, 
a feeling of hesitancy, and a lack of conviction on the 
particular subject in debate. These are its elements; and 
they are supposed usually to exist in connection with a 
deep and earnest spirit of inquiry; and hence, according 
to the radical import of the name, a skeptic is one who 
has not found truth, but who is diligently seeking its dis- 
covery. It does not, however, always follow that the un- 
satisfied, questioning mind is at the same time faithful in 
its search for light, especially for the light needed to dis- 
sipate the darkness which enshrouds the grave problems 
of theology. Unhappily, when doubt invades the soul, 



232 ISMS OLD Al^D NEW. 

and the doctrines of religion are looked upon as chimer- 
ical, it too frequently becomes chronic, and the labor of 
investigation is abandoned. Sir Walter Raleigh, it is re- 
ported, burnt the second part of his Workrs History in a 
moment of excitement caused by his inability to verify a 
little incident that occurred under his very eyes while a 
prisoner in the Tower of London. On which occasion he 
is credited with these reflections: "How many falsehoods 
must this work contain. If I cannot assure myself of an 
event which happened in my presence, how can I venture 
to describe those which occurred thousands of years be- 
fore I was born, or those which have passed at a distance 
since my birth ? Truth ! truth ! this is a sacrifice that I 
owe thee." Whereupon he threw the manuscript into 
the fire. It is believed by some people that the nebular 
hypothesis of Herschel was due to the want of power in 
his forty-feet reflector, rather than to ascertained data. 
When his magnificent instrument, which had resolved the 
milky way into stellar millions, brought to view other 
milky ways in the depths of the universe which it could 
not thus resolve, the astronomer fell to theorizing, and 
concluded that these new nebulre were masses of formless 
matter, the raw material out of which solar systems are 
fashioned. Instead of recognizing the limitations of the 
reflector he straightway started a hypothesis, and took for 
granted what he could not prov^e. Whether the story 
about Raleigh is true, or this representation of Herschel's 
theory is just, they both illustrate the too common course 
pursued by those who entertain suspicions regarding the 
teachings of Christianity. Feeling how difficult it is to 
decide on the character of events taking place around 
them, and realizing how frequently they fall into mis- 
takes, they avoid investigations which, they have pre- 
judged, would yield no satisfactory results. They sneer 
at their childhood's faith as semi-mythical, surrender it 



THE MISSION- OF DOUBT. 233 

hastily to the flames, and obstinately walk on in darkness 
to the grave. Or, failing to take the measure of their 
own mind, and overlooking the limitations which rest on 
thought, because they cannot resolve the nebulas of revela- 
tion into suns and stars, and fancying that they are 
severely scientific, when, in fact, they are diffusively senti- 
mental, they impetuously adopt some unproved and un- 
provable theory of Godless materialism. 

Shakspeare has called " modest doubt the beacon of the 
wise," and when it preserves this character it is certainly 
deserving of sympathy. The harshness with which it has 
at times been treated seems to me unwarranted. He who 
has fallen beneath its shadow is not to be thoughtlessly 
derided, for it may cause him as much pain to doubt as it 
gives Christians to have him doubt. If he is honest he 
suffers enough without additional j^angs being heedlessly 
inflicted by those who have never tasted his cup of bitter- 
ness. Only the most stolid and unreflecting will deny that 
there is much in the world to perplex, that its mysteries 
multiply as they are touched, like the loaves and fishes in 
the Savior's hands, or that there is much in Christianity as 
it exists among us to imj^air confidence in its divine ori- 
gin. Very few thoughtful people are to be found whose 
faith at some period has not been temporarily eclipsed; 
and their own experience should teach them to bear pa- 
tiently with the unbelief of others. He who has never 
questioned the truth of the things that are urged upon 
his acceptance in the name of religion, who has never felt 
the very foundations departing beneath his feet, and who 
has never agonized in the grasp of giant and overwhelm- 
ing difficulties, may be congratulated on the strength of 
his faith, but he cannot be complimented on the depth of 
his intellect. Moreover, it should be remembered that 
doubt has its office and function, and has a mission to 
accomplish, as truly as belief. Schiller lays stress upon 



234 - IS3IS OLD AKD NEW. 

this thought in his Philosophical Letters, and shows in 
the following passage how that which we deplore becomes 
a minister of good: "Skepticism and free-thinking are the 
feverish paroxysms of the human mind, and must needs at 
length confirm the health of well organized souls by the 
unnatural convulsion which they occasion. In proportion 
to the dazzling and seducing nature of error will- be the 
greatness of the triumphs of truth: the demand for con- 
viction and firm belief will be strong and pressing in 
proportion to the torment occasioned by the pangs of 
doubt. But doubt was necessary to elicit these errors; 
the knowledge of the disease had to precede its cure. 
Truth suffers no loss if a vehement youth fails in finding 
it, in the same way that virtue and religion suffer no detri- 
ment if a criminal denies them." Hence it is that to the 
influence of Skepticism we owe our release from bondage to 
manifold superstitions. Man's ability to question, and his 
indefeasible right to do so, lies at the root of all progress, 
whether civil or religious. It has gradually emancipated 
him from errors and delusions; it has enabled him to sift 
the true from the false, and it has exalted him above the 
despotisms of priests and potentates. And unless -we can 
prove that the future has no fresh treasures of knowledge 
to yield, no clearer and more accurate views of Scripture 
to discover, we must admit that it has yet a work to ac- 
complish, and is neither to be indiscriminately derided 
nor rashly denounced. But when it degenerates from an 
honest suspension of judgment, and abandons its ques- 
tioning attitude, and settles into blind, rooted, stubborn 
and uninquiring incredulity, it fails to be reasonable and 
forfeits its claim to kindly consideration and generous 
sympathy. When it ceases to be "a tortuous deviation of 
the wandering reason seeking the straight road to eternal 
truth," and becomes a disguised or undisguised endeavor 
to escape from religious obligation, it is guilty of inconsist- 



THE POWER OF PREJUDICE. 235 

ency, and makes itself a principle of infinite mischief. Into 
this low state has Skepticism fallen in our times, and from 
its fatal power every generous, serious soul should desire 
deliverance. And it may assist all, who are thus sincerely 
anxious to be freed from its bondage, to look at it thought- 
fully from a Christian standpoint. 

First, Christian thinkers regard the mental processes of 
Skepticism as unsatisfactory and inconclusive. They pri- 
marily object to the assumption of its advocates that the 
head is fully qualified to judge the credentials of religion, 
whatever m.ay be the condition of the heart. No allow- 
ance seems to be made for prejudices and prepossessions, 
or for a low tone of morals. It is taken for granted that 
spiritual truth can be settled just as mathematical truth is 
decided, by a purely intellectual method. Such, however, 
is not the case. Herbert Spencer has shown very clearly 
in his Study of Sociology the tremendous influence of 
personal, educational and professional bias on investiga- 
tions of this character; and Hazlitt has argued that every 
man is responsible for his belief, on the ground that 
wishes, inclinations and predilections govern the under- 
standing as irresistibly as logic or evidence. Fichte, the 
philosopher, has well said, " Our system of thought is 
often but the history of our heart; conviction arises from 
inclination, not from reason, and the improvement of the 
heart leads to true wisdom"; and he adds in another 
place: "If, then, the will be steadfastly and sincerely fixed 
upon what is good, the understanding will of itself dis- 
cover what is true"; or, in other words, "men do not will 
according to their reason, but reason according to their 
will." Goethe expresses a similar sentiment, and it may 
be accepted as axiomatic. Instinctively we feel that a 
man of mere intellect, cold and abstruse, in whom the 
rational absolutely predominates ov^er and excludes the 
emotional, and who is an incarnation of mind, and only 



236 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

mind, is far from being completely and harmoniously de- 
veloped. We shrink from these unnatural and portentous 
individuals, and find ourselves reluctant to commit our 
lives to their guidance. Something is lacking in them, 
and when they report adversely to the Faith we feel that 
if they had possessed a heart to speak their testimony 
would have been different. When Skepticism, therefore, 
approaches, proudly announcing its incertitude in the 
name of reason, and of reason only, we hesitate to receive 
its conclusion, as the process by vv^hich it has been reached 
is radically defective. 

We also know that most of its supporters are not care- 
ful to scrutinize their likes and dislikes, their prejudices 
and passions, for according to their assumption these have 
no bearing on the issue, and as long as they thus think 
must their ratiocination be open to question. There is 
much in Christianity to excite antagonism. It declares 
the awful facts of sin, responsibihty and penalty, and 
building its house of mercy on these foundations it invites 
all to accept its saving hospitality as an unmerited gift 
and favor. These representations are not agreeable to 
those who incline toward iniquity, nor hardly more so to 
those who pride themselves on their morality. Naturally 
they feel indignant with a system that overwhelms their 
guilt and overturns their vanity, and are in a favorable 
mood to be captivated by any bewildering sophistry that 
chimes harmoniously with their predilections. Likewise 
professional pursuits may exert a warping influence on the 
judgment; for when the attention is directed exclusively to 
physical phenomena, as in the case of naturalists, or to the 
animal side of humanity, as in the case of physicians, it is 
not improbable that they will fail to see anything beyond 
the particular objects in which they are personally inter- 
ested. As the surgeon's scalpel lays bare no soul, and 
the astronomer's glass discovers no God, they are in dan- 



WILLIAM WIRT'S LETTER. 237 

ger of inferring that there is nothing grander or more 
wonderful in the universe than the dull material with 
which they are familiar, and with which they have exclu- 
sively to do. Until Skepticism makes due and adequate 
allowance for the mental obscurity and obliquity which 
these prepossessions may occasion, and until it takes 
counsel of the deeper longings of the heart, its doubts 
will fail to carry conviction; and when it does this, in my 
opinion, few doubts will remain for it to cherish and ex- 
press. 

Christians also question the validity of an argument 
that exaggerates the uncertainties of religion, and that 
overlooks the vagueness of science. It is well known that 
this form of unbelief owes much of its influence to the 
impression, which it has industriously cultivated, that re- 
ligion is too indefinite, changeful and mysterious for it to 
inspire confidence. This is its favorite position, and by 
far its strongest; and yet it is a long way from being im- 
pregnable. The mystery that rests on spiritual subjects 
must be admitted; for, as Goethe says, "the farther we 
advance in research, the nearer we approach the unsearch- 
able"; but this is no more prejudicial to the authority of 
Christianity than it is to the trustworthiness of nature. 
William Wirt, who clearly discerned this fact, in a 
letter now in the possession of a prominent citizen of 
Chicago, expresses his opinion regarding the worth of this 
objection in these terms: "Would to God you could be- 
lieve with me that the Bible is true, the revealed will of 
God, and offers to us the only terms of salvation. Human 
reason may revolt at it, and what is poor human reason, 
unable to explain how a blade of grass grows ? Sur- 
rounded every moment with realities which it admits to 
be inexplicable mysteries, and yet presuming to measure 
and pronounce upon the counsels of Omniscience, and re- 
jecting the Christian religion because it is a mystery. 



238 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

Can anything be more mysterious than the union of soul 
and body, unless it be the still greater mystery, which 
some profess to believe, that matter can be so organized 
as to produce the amazing intellectual results which we 
witness in man ? In believing our own existence we be- 
lieve a mystery as great as any that the Christian religion 
presents, for there are no degrees in mystery. Pass the 
sphere of reason, and all is mystery of equal degree; all 
the works of the Almighty are mysterious to our poor 
limited faculties. What a series of magnificent mysteries 
does astronomy present! Philosophers resolve the motion 
of the planets into gravitation, and what is gravitation? 
Let reason answer the question. It cannot do it. She 
finds herself involved in a world of mysteries, and yet she 
rejects the Christian religion because it is a mystery. Is 
not God himself a mystery ? or if the solar system is be- 
lieved to be uncreated and eternal, is not that a mystery ? 
Would I have a man renounce his reason ? No. I ask 
only that he will confine it to its proper sphere, and not 
pronounce the ocean without a bottom because it cannot 
touch it with an inch of line." Likewise, may we not 
with equal propriety inquire, who is able to solve the 
problems of medicine, or accurately define the relations 
and properties with which geometry has to do ? The 
physician talks learnedly about a principle of life which 
eludes his touch and defies his analysis, and the mathema- 
tician uses terms in his discourse with a freedom that sug- 
gests a refreshing unconsciousness of their inexplicable- 
ness. What does he mean by "space," "properties," and 
"relations" with which his geometry deals? It would 
puzzle him to answer, especially so unobjectionably as to 
command the assent of every other thinker. And what 
about the solution of Euclid's Postulate, the squaring of 
the circle, and the geometrical axioms which we accept 
but cannot demonstrate? Then as to fickleness, what 



VARIATIONS OF SCIENCE. 239 

has been more mutable than the interpretations of 
nature, which have been put forth by its zealous ex- 
plorers and expounders ? For instance, concerning the 
age of the earth, how various and contradictory are 
the opinions of eminent men who enjoy the same oppor- 
tunities for investigation. Sir Charles Lyell held that 
two hundred and forty millions of years have elapsed 
since the beginning of the Cambrian period, while Mr. 
Darwin indulges in calculations that would date its ori- 
gin a billion of years ago. On the contrary. Sir William 
Thomson is satisfied with less bewildering figures; he 
limits the existing state of things on the earth to about a 
hundred millions; but Prof. Tait is even more modest, and 
argues that physical considerations render it impossible 
for life to have been here for more than ten or fifteen 
millions of years. You perceive that millions, more or less, 
make very little difference with these gentlemen; and 
the same uncertainty appears in other departments of 
inquiry. The theory of emission has been supplanted by 
that of undulations; caloric has been driven from heat by 
atomic motion; phlogiston and protoplasm have both suc- 
cumbed to electric and magnetic forces; and it is impossi- 
ble to foretell how light will reach us in the future, or 
what elements our scientists will permit to compose the 
atmosphere we breathe, and the world we inhabit. Now 
is it not a curious instance of inconsistency when a man 
challenges the credibility of Christianity on account of the 
variable and conflicting views to which it has given rise, 
and yet remains an ardent believer in the trustworthiness 
of nature, concerning whose operations so many giant 
battles have been fought ? The changing aspects of re- 
ligion, and the differences of opinion which exist among 
its disciples the Christian does not deny, though he claims 
that there is greater unity and permanence in the inter- 
pretations of its doctrinal and ethical teachings than is 



240 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

generally recognized; and he argues that its certitude is 
no more impeachable on these grounds than is that of the 
material universe. He claims that it is God's plan that 
man should search for truth in the spiritual and physical 
domains; that the privilege of investigating involves the 
possibility of error, and that it is no more than reasonable, 
therefore, to expect diversity of thought about both, on 
account of which to reject either would be folly. 

The failure of Skepticism to attach a proper value to 
the testimony of religious experience, and to discover a 
suitable sphere for the exercise of the faith-faculty, is 
regarded by Christians as fatal to its pretensions. Its 
attacks are directed almost entirely against historical 
evidences and alleged Scripture discrepancies. In these 
it earnestly seeks for flaws, but pays no attention to the 
statements made by the vast body of living witnesses, 
who testify to what "they have seen, and heard, and han- 
dled." The well-known lines of Horace, condensed by 
Tennyson, express the thought, 

"Things seen are weightier than things heard"; 

but things felt carry even greater weight; for there is 
nothing more real and certain than our heart experiences. 
Well, here are thousands of worthy people, among them 
the most cultivated, sober and blameless members of soci- 
ety, who assure us that they have been favored with visit- 
ations from God's Spirit; that they are now conscious of 
His indwelling; that their prayers have been answered, 
and that in suffering and tribulation they have enjoyed a 
deep sense of the Divine presence and sympathy. Here 
are also other thousands who are going down to death 
radiant with triumph, contemplated by weeping friends 
whose tears gleam strangely with the iris hues of hope, 
and who to the last ascribe their victory to "the Lamb of 
God, who taketh away the sin of the world." These are 



THE FAITH-FACULTY. 241 

not fanatics; many of them are very commonplace per- 
sons, not given to sentimental emotions, and in all other 
relations of life their word would be taken and relied on. 
Why should they be doubted when they testify to what 
they experience of God's goodness and grace ? Unless we 
are warranted in treating with disdain the inner world of 
thought and feelins;, we cannot refuse to listen to its 
voices. And as these voices assure us of the substantial 
reality of religion, only the exigencies of a desperate 
cause will ignore their testimony, or sneer at it as vain 
and meaningless. Nor have infidels always been able to 
bear consistent testimony against them; for at times their 
own conduct has indicated the existence of deeper spirit- 
ual necessities than their systems countenance. Rochester 
turned to Christ in his closing hours, and like Julian 
acknowledged that the Galilean had conquered; David 
Hume was not a stranger to the house of God, but in 
Scotland sometimes joined with the people in solemn wor- 
ship; Voltaire reared a church at Ferney; Collins, it is said, 
insisted that his servants should be faithful to the claims 
of the Sanctuary; Robespierre decreed the extraordinary 
festival of the Supreme Being; Huxley has plead for the 
retention of the Bible in education; and Tyndall has 
waxed indignant over the imputations cast on his belief in 
Deity; and M. Littre, in the shadow of the grave, has 
confessed, "They are happy who have faith"; and it is 
natural to conclude that this amiable disregard of the 
logic of their views is due to a dim consciousness of some- 
thing in their own hearts which cries out against their 
truth. 

Reason, conscience and volition have received from 
thinkers considerable attention, but the faith-faculty has 
never yet been exhaustively discussed. Within our neces- 
sarily circumscribed limits, and dealing with a different 
subject, it is impossible to do more than allude to its sig- 
16 



242 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

nificance. We find in man capacity for faith, and, as 
Goethe has shown, the ages in which it has been in active 
exercise have been the most brilliant in the annals of time. 
It bears "a heaven-storming character," and intuitively 
seeks an Infinite Being, and is as dissatisfied with any 
other as reason is with sophistry. Religion appeals to it, 
strengthens, feeds it, and where it is nourished the entire 
character feels its benignant influence. It can no more be 
neglected in the harmonious development of a man than 
conscience or volition. But what kind of training does it 
receive from Skepticism ? None at all, or, if any, simply 
mistraining. Skepticism does not know what to do with 
it. If the normal attitude of the mind toward spiritual 
subjects is doubt, how comes it that instinctively it trusts ? 
Why should faith be so natural if it is unreasonable ? 
What is its place, what its function, what its object? 
To these questions this Ism has no answer to return. All 
it attempts to do is to blight, wither and destroy, root and 
branch, this faculty, and in its place plant the seeds that 
may at last grow into the colorless and perfumeless weed 
of unbelief. According to Goethe, even " natural religion, 
properly speaking, requires no faith," and if so, where 
every kind of religion is rejected its operations must be 
entirely superfluous. Goethe says: "The persuasion that 
a great producing, regulating and conducting Being con- 
ceals himself, as it were, behind Nature, to make himself 
comprehensible to us, — such a conviction forces itself 
upon everyone. Nay, if we for a moment let drop this 
thread, which conducts us through life, it may be imme- 
diately and everywhere resumed. But it is different with 
a special religion, which announces to us that this Great 
Being distinctly and preeminently interests himself for 
one individual, one family, one people, one country. This 
religion is founded on faith, which must be immovable if 
it would not be instantly destroyed." Then a special 



DOGMATIC DOUBT. 248 

revelation is indispensable to the training of this faculty, 
just as specific and diversified objects are indispensable to 
the development of vision; and if it is to be preserved at 
all its wants must be adequately supplied. The difficulty, 
not to say impossibility, of Skepticism affording nourish- 
ment to faith, taken in connection with its disregard of 
the testimony borne to religion by experience, completes 
the dissatisfaction which its mental processes produce, and 
increases the conviction that they should be as little trust- 
ed as "adders fang'd." 

Secondly, reflecting Christians consider the moral qual- 
ities of Skepticism as unattractive and reprehensible. 
They object to its intolerance. It is an erroneous notion, 
though one widely spread, that belief in holy things leads 
to narrowness, exclusiveness, and cruel bigotry. Unques- 
tionably it has served as a pretext for this unlovely spirit; 
but, as Naville argues, it is in direct contradiction to its 
essential nature. Christianity fell away from its original 
character before it began to persecute. In fact, it became 
skeptical before it became bloody. It doubted the suffi- 
ciency of God's arm, and entered into alliance with the 
civil government; it doubted the adequacy of Revelation, 
and invented infallible popes and councils; it doubted the 
efficiency of Christ's mediation, and created interminable 
intercessors out of dead saints and virgins; and it doubted 
the power of the gospel to convert the soul, and it went 
forth to evangelize, sword and torch in hand. Thus its 
doubts bred intolerance, as they do in every mind where 
they are cherished; hence the dogmatic manner with 
which religion is treated by those who profess to be ques- 
tioning its claims. No pope ever delivered himself more 
positively than do these devotees at the shrine of uncer- 
tainty. They are ready, to use a Shakespearean phrase, 
"to spurn the sea if it could roar" at them. All who 
differ from them are set down as fanatics or simpletons. 



244 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

They are vilified in writings, are caricatured in speeches, 
and are held up to derision and contempt. The prejudices 
of society are sedulously excited against them by inflam- 
matory appeals and misrepresentations, and they are de- 
scribed as the victims of idle, cunning priests, whose influ- 
ence is pernicious and ruinous. They are stretched on the 
rack of ridicule; they are scorched in the fires of denun- 
ciation; they are decapitated by the guillotine of sarcasm; 
and were it possible, their churches would be closed, and 
they themselves be ostracised. And all this vituperative 
intolerance in the interest of doubt! For the sake of 
conserving the sanctity of negation, and upholding the 
authority of nothingness, this petty and contemptible, 
arrogant and tyrannous course is pursued. If some noble 
and glorious cause were at stake we might find some palli- 
ation, under the circumstances, for this bitterness and 
severity; but when, according to uniform consent, there is 
nothing but uncertainty to defend, never was passion and 
anger more unjustifiable and idle. 

Heartlessness as well as intolerance is chargeable upon 
this Ism. It robs and makes no return; it tears from the 
souls of the young and old ideals that elevate, aims that 
inspire, hopes that sustain. Careless of the wounds it 
inflicts, of the desolation it creates, it seeks to undermine 
confidence in prayer and providence. It is a dull, dumb 
iconoclast that destroys without building, that smites 
faith with pals}^, and then stands gibbering over the help- 
less wreck it has wrought. If we are in sorrow it has no 
comfort, if we are in sin it has no deliverance, if we are in 
perplexity it has no wisdom, if we are in darkness it has 
no light. The virtue it preaches is without foundation, 
the heroism it inculcates is without inducement, and the 
immortality it whispers is without evidence. Its loftiest 
sentiments are borrowed from the religion it affects to 
despise; the liberty which it claims to champion, it has 



FANATICISM OF DOUBT. 245 

sacrificed but little to secure; and the sweet charities it 
commends, it has done nothing to establish. The garland 
of eloquence wherewith it clothes itself is the adornment 
of a corpse; every flower sheathes a worm in its bosom, 
and every breath of fragrance is mingled with death. Its 
oratory smells of the tomb, and the symbol of its hope is 
an eyeless, tongueless skull, grinning in mocking insolence 
at everything that dignifies and ennobles life. It brings 
no benefaction, it pronounces no benediction; but casts 
its baleful shadow on all that is fair and sacred. From its 
cold lips there comes no grand and full rounded "Yea," 
to match its piercing, blighting and destroying " Nay." 
It is simply a huge Negation, seeking with one hand to 
stop the mouth of religion, and with the other to write on 
human aspirations and beliefs a bitter and derisive "No." 
It has no gospel of salvation even for this world, but only 
an evangel of destruction. If it had anything to say, if 
it had a better message to deliver than Christianity speaks, 
its zeal would be explicable. But why it should desire to 
impoverish the heart and life of thousands, why it should 
labor to deprive the world of the only sun that irradiates 
its gloomy fields and its deep, dark valleys, and why it 
should be gratified at the prospect of blotting out suns 
and stars from the immortal soul, cannot be imagined, and 
requires the malicious ingenuity of fiends to parallel. Do 
you recall these words of Tennyson ? — 

"Oh, thou that after toil and storm 

Mays't seem to have reached a purer air, 
Whose faith has center everywhere, 
Nor cares to fix itself to form. 

" Leave thou thy sister wlien she prays. 
Her early heaven, her happy views ; 
Nor thou with shadowed hints confuse 
A life that leads melodious days. 



246 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

" Her faith through form is pure as thine, 
Her hands are quicker unto good ; 
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
To which she links a truth divine." 

If such a faith should be tenderly and thoughtfully 
dealt with by one who rejoices in emancipation from 
"form," how much more deeply should it be reverenced 
by him who unhappily has no faith at all. His own 
dreariness and loneliness should touch his heart with com- 
passion and restrain him from saying or doing what would 
carry the sense of solitariness and sadness to others. In- 
difference to this duty betrays a heartlessness and reck- 
lessness which augurs ill for the world should Skepticism 
ever triumph. If so heedless of the pain it inflicts now, 
who can foresee where it would stop were it exalted and 
enthroned ? 

The injury that is wrought to souls by this cruel 
thoughtlessness, or deliberate cruelty, is faithfully por- 
trayed by Schiller. He represents {^Philosophical Letters) 
a certain Julius as writing to Raphael in the following 
strain: "You have robbed me of the thought that gave 
me peace. You have taught me to despise where I prayed 
before. A thousand things were venerable in my sight 
till your dismal wisdom stripped off the veil from them. 
I saw a crowd of people streaming to church. I heard 
their enthusiastic devotion poured forth in a common act 
of prayer and praise. Twice did I stand beside a death- 
bed and saw — wonderful power of religion! — the hope 
of heaven triumph over the terror of annihilation, and the 
serene light of joy beaming from the eyes of those depart- 
ing." But faith in the reality of this worship, and con- 
fidence in the certainty of immortality, had alike been 
destroyed by the sneers of his friend; and unhappy Julius 
was left with his rationalism and his cynicism a poorer, and 
not a wiser, man. No wonder that the honest growler, Car- 



CARLYLE ON" VOLTAIRE. 247 

lyle, treats with contempt the men who lend themselves to 
this pitiable and despicable business. " Cease, my much- 
respected Herr von Voltaire," he says. ^' Shut thy sweet 
voice, for the task appointed thee seems finished. Suffi- 
ciently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, consider- 
able or otherwise: that the Mythus of the Christian Re- 
ligion looks not in the eighteenth century as it did in the 
eighth." . . . "But what next? Wilt thou help us to 
embody the divine Spirit of that religion in a new Mythus, 
in a new vehicle and vesture, that our Souls, otherwise too 
like perishing, may live ? What ! Thou hast no faculty 
in that kind ? Only a torch for burning, no hammer for 
building? Take our thanks, then, and — thyself away." 
Evidently Carlyle felt that it might oifend ears polite for 
him to write all that was in his heart when thinking of 
such melodious faith-murderers as Voltaire. With them 
he had no sympathy; neither have we, and we feel their 
bigotry and heartlessness so keenly that we turn from 
them with horror and deplore the condition of every man 
who falls a prey to their insidious wiles. 

Whether this aversion is justifiable or not, you, my 
readers, must decide. I leave you to ponder the serious 
matter in your souls; but being satisfied in my own that 
it is, and feeling interested in your spiritual well-being, 
permit me to press home the duty incumbent on you if 
you would be free from the entangling meshes of Skep- 
ticism. The Country Parson gives this good advice to 
persons in your condition: "Don't turn your back upon 
your doctrinal doubts and difficulties. Go up to them and 
examine them. Perhaps the ghastly object which looks 
to you in the twilight like a sheeted ghost may prove to 
be no more than a tablecloth hanging upon a hedge; but 
if you were to pass it distantly without ascertaining what 
it is, you might carry the shuddering belief that you had 
seen a disembodied spirit all your days. Some people 



248 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

(very wrongly as I think) would have you turn the key 
upon your skeptical difficulties and look away from the 
pig-sty altogether." 

I do not belong to this class. I think it is the duty 
of every man to confront boldly and investigate fear- 
lessly all kinds of objections that may obscure the truth 
of Christianity. As a rule, the more thoroughly they 
are sifted and the more closely they are scrutinized, the 
less real and weighty will they appear. Have the cour- 
age to grasp them, to clutch them firmly and look them 
squarely in the face, and you shall find their seeming 
solidity to be nothing but vapor, and their pretentious 
speech to be but empty gasconade and windy rodomont- 
ade. Take the claims of Christianity and all the diffi- 
culties in the way of their reception, apply yourself to 
understand, examine, and judge them, and if the task is 
undertaken in the right spirit the result need not be 
apprehended. Search diligently, for this is no child's play 
for sluggard brains and fitful, spasmodic efforts; search 
impartially, for this is too grave a work for purblind preju- 
dice, obstinate onesidedness, and nutshell narrow-mind- 
edness; search systematically, for this is too deep and 
profound a theme for irregular, immethodical, and indis- 
criminate thinking; search exhaustively, for the problems 
involved are too intricate and abstruse for shallow-headed, 
dull-witted, shoaly superficialness; and search reverently, 
for the issues are too solemn and wide-reaching for quip 
and quirk, conceits and comicalities, showy smartness, 
buffooneries, and idle farcicalities. Thus search, rever- 
encing God, reverencing truth, and reverencing self, and 
then shall it be found that reason and faith coalesce in 
lucid union, that Christianity is not a phantom, but the 
one reality mocked by gibing ghosts, and that Skepticism 
is not unconquerable, but vulnerable to earnest and exact- 
ing thought. But even if it should resist laborious medi- 



FALTERIl^TG FAITH. 249 

tation and refuse entirely to surrender, if faith should 
continue to be darkened by great shadows and grow 
faint and cold before the breath of drear despondency, 
nevertheless, though struggling to see in the imperfect 
light, and failing to rise above the murky atmosphere, the 
knowledge mastered and the evidence tested would not be 
useless. At least they will bring a certain confidence in 
the reality of religion, a profound conviction of the utter 
folly of unbelief, and if they do nothing more, they will 
constrain the troubled and unsatisfied soul with the sad, 
bereaved one in Tennyson's In Memoriani to exclaim: 

"I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
That slope thro' darkness up to God, 
I stretch lame hands of faith and grope, 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 
And faintly trust the larger hope." 



LIBEKALISM. 

" Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful 
disputations." Rom. xiv, 1. 

"' Why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience? " 

1 Cor. X, 29. 

" O love-destroying, cursed Bigotry ! 
. . ^ Of ignorance 

Begot, her daughter, Persecution, walked 
The earth, from age to age, and drank the blood 
Of saints; with horrid relish drank the blood 
Of God's peculiar children, and was drunk. 
And in her drunkenness dreamed of doing good. 
The supplicating hand of innocence. 
That made the tiger mild, and in his wrath 
The lion pause, the groans of suffering most 
Severe, were naught to her; she laughed at groans; 
No music pleased her more, and no repast 
So sweet to her as blood of men redeemed 
By blood of Christ." Polloh. 

THANKS be to God, all this is changed! But the 
greatness of this revolution is more vividly realized in 
Europe than in America. There the eye frequently rests 
on the now useless weapons of persecuting ages, and on 
the monuments which the modern spirit has reared to mur- 
dered saints. The hypocritical pharisees of Christ's time, 
who garnished the tombs of the righteous, were accus- 
tomed to say, with what degree of sincerity you who have 
studied their character can judge, " If we had lived in the 
days of our fathers we would not have been partakers 
with them in the blood of the prophets." And many of 
those who have been instrumental in quenching the fires 

250 



THE AGE OF FREEDOM. 251 

of martyrdom, and in commemorating the grandeur of 
suffering goodness, may have been equally insincere; but 
if they were, this fact shows only more clearly the strength 
of the liberalistic movement, before which even their bigo- 
try was compelled to succumb. In the Tower of London 
the now harmless thumb-screws and the now edgeless ax 
are exhibited to the curious, and recall to thoughtful souls 
the terrors of secret tortures, and of public or private 
executions. How innocent they seem, and yet what a 
story they could relate of undeserved pain inflicted, of 
piteous shrieks and groans unheeded, and of hearts sob- 
bing in helpless anguish beneath the iron rule of tyrant 
kings and priests, who recognized no conscience but their 
own. Their tragic work is ended forevermore, and now 
the red republican can mock the ax, and the despised 
heretic can smile at the cruel thumb-screw, while they 
give free expression to their political or theological dis- 
sent. 

In Venice there are three buildings significantly joined 
together, and each bears its own peculiar testimony to the 
decline of oppression. The first is the basilica of St. 
Mark, that noble creation of Byzantine art on which Rus- 
kin has lavished so much praise. The next is the palace 
of the Doges, so closely connected with it that the chief 
of the government could pass from his regal home to the 
place of worship without exposing himself to the public 
view; and the third is the prison bound to the palace by 
the ever-famous Bridge of Sighs. Here we have in stone 
the suggestive symbol of the hated alliance which wrought 
so much mischief to society. Whenever the church and 
state are banded together, the darkness and horror of the 
prison are inevitable. But in our times the Italian hierar- 
chy is practically dissevered from the Italian government, 
and St. Mark's attracts the curious tourist more than it 
does the devout worshiper. The palace of the Doges and 



252 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

of the mysterious Council of Ten is converted into a pic- 
ture gallery and museum, and the prison is devoted to 
criminals, not to saints; while from their hinges the doors 
have been torn by the outraged people from the dungeons 
beneath the palace, in which so many noble men and 
women suffered unjustly, and in whose dampness and 
gloominess so many foul deeds were perpetrated. 

Florence rejoices in its sacred temple of St. Croce, 
enriched with memorials to departed greatness. Among 
the monuments are two w^hich mutely, but distinctly, pro- 
claim the revolution that has taken place in human senti- 
ment regarding the rights of conscience. They are reared 
to the memory of Dante, who was banished to Ravenna, 
and there died, and Galileo Galilei, who was hounded 
mercilessly by the Inquisition. The tomb of the astrono- 
mer, who was execrated by the church, represents him 
with a telescope in one hand, and with a diagram of the 
earth in the other; a ladder above him reaches to the 
heavens, denoting his aspiring intellect; and two burn- 
ing vases symbolize the immortality of his fame. Who 
would have been mad enough to predict, when he trem- 
blingly bowed before the authority of the haughty. Roman 
church, that he would ever be honored with such a tribute 
within the walls of one of her most stately edifices ? Nev- 
ertheless, what would then have been considered a wild 
dream has been accomplished; and between the lines of 
his epitaph may be read the undeniable fact that freedom 
of thought and of speech has gloriously triumphed. 

While it is a cause of congratulation that the victory 
is thus pronounced, it is not yet possible to claim that it 
is absolutely complete. The old spirit of persecution is 
not yet quite dead. It asserts itself still, as occasion 
serves, in the decrees and deeds of the Papacy, and some- 
times peers forth undisguised in the words and works of 
Protestantism. Bigotry, intellectual narrowness, and ig- 



MODEKN BIGOTRY. 253 

norant prejudice, if not as common as in the past, are 
altogether too frequent for unalloyed satisfaction to be 
felt in the present. Although it is readily conceded that 
no church is infallible, and that no body of men have 
mastered the omne scibile, as a Princeton Revieio writer 
phrases it, and although it is expected that new light will 
be evolved from the Holy Scriptures, it is a very hazardous 
undertaking for an adventurous teacher to run counter to 
the received opinions of the majority, or to advocate what 
the fathers failed to formulate. There is enough intoler- 
ance in the religious world to make the position of such 
a man exceedingly uncomfortable. Supposing that he is 
not guilty of heresy, and that his presentation of truth 
differs more in form than in substance from what is gen- 
erally received, or that it is simply a development and a 
carrying to a higher plane the doctrines that are currently 
accepted, nevertheless, his boldness and progressiveness 
will alarm conservatives and arouse their antagonism. 
Even questions of a lower order, which pertain to the 
domain of expediency, and which confessedly must be 
decided by the individual, are dealt with by some Chris- 
tians acrimoniously and dogmatically. If their brethren 
exercise their liberty in these things the law of charity is 
quite forgotten, and they are denounced and derided in a 
manner that suggests the harsh, rough ages when no ill- 
usage was considered too severe for the wicked wretches 
who presumed to think and act according to the dictates 
of their conscience. But it is not necessary to point out 
the various ways, or to chronicle the miserable and mean 
methods, by which the attenuated bigotry of modern times 
seeks to maintain itself; it is enough simply to notice the 
tenacity with which it holds to life without exposing any 
further its ghastly deformities. 

Professors of religion, however, are not the only ones 
in this liberalistic age who are guilty of illiberality. Out- 



254 ISMS OLD Ai^D I^EW. 

side of the church, among those who claim to be the 
special champions of free thought, and who are constantly 
sneering at the narrowness of Christ's disciples, dogmatism 
in its worst form reveals itself. Infidel lecturers, who 
admit that they have nothing particularly definite or valu- 
able to communicate, breathe out their anathemas in a 
manner worthy the Vatican. Even men of science are 
sometimes impatient and violent when the soundness of 
their theories is called in question. It is a matter of com- 
mon notoriety that Virchow, because he has had the moral 
courage to say that the descent of man from the ape has 
not been substantiated, is hooted and howled at by the 
advanced evolutionists of Germany. And his experience is 
identical with that of others who have had the temerity to 
challenge the claims of an hypothesis, whose facts are very 
largely fancies, and whose fancies are pretty generally fatui- 
ties. The lamented Mr. James T. Fields describes an im- 
pressive scene that was enacted at a meeting of the French 
Institute in 1798. St. Pierre, the author of that delightful 
book, Paul and Virginia, was requested to present a paper 
on the question "What institutions are the most proper to 
form a basis for public morals ? " He undertook the work, 
and embodied in it his own deep convictions regarding the 
indispensableness of piety. His colleagues were avowedly 
skeptical and atheistical, and were not prepared to wel- 
come an expression of religious sentiment. When he read 
his essay the Institute became violently agitated, and on 
the mention of God's name the entire body seemed to lose 
its composure and self-control. St. Pierre was mocked, 
insulted, threatened. One member sneeringly inquired 
when had he seen God. Others offered to fight him, 
that the sword might decide whether or not such a Being 
existed; while others derided his advanced years, insinu- 
ating that he had come to his second childhood; and yet 
another, more furious than the rest, threateningly cried out. 



BIGOTRY OF PHILOSOPHEKS. 255 

^'I swear that there is no God, and I demand that his 
name never again be pronounced within these walls." 
Just think of a company of scholars, pledged to the cause 
of liberty, unable to restrain their fanatical hatred of 
Christianity, and betrayed by it into a course of conduct 
as indecent as it is intolerant. In the presence of such a 
humiliating spectacle, it is only fair to conclude that 
bigotry is not peculiar to the church, but is possible and 
frequent in every other department of thought and life, 
and that even the profession of extreme charitableness is 
far from being an assurance of its possession or consistent 
exercise. 

But, while this vice should be condemned wherever it 
is found, it is not to be concluded that Liberalism in its 
theories and practical workings is entitled to unqualified 
praise. It is far from being an unmixed good. Bishop 
Ken said of it, many years ago: " It is the common sewer 
of all heresies imaginable;" and his Grace of London, in 
1850, declared it to be a sea without a shore, having no 
polar star to guide those who embark on it but the uncer- 
tain light of reason. Mr. Mallock, who has thoroughly 
studied its various phases, in his Neio Republic gives a 
not very flattering account of its character. He makes 
Leslie say, w^hen criticising Dr. Jenkinson's sermon: 
" You forget that Dr. J's Christianity is really a new firm 
trading under an old name, and trying to purchase the 
good will of the former establishment;" to which Herbert 
responds: "It is simply our modern Atheism trying to 
hide its own nakedness for the benefit of the more prudish 
part of the public in the cast-off grave-clothes of a Christ 
who, whether He be risen or no, is very certainly not 
here." Possibly this is an extreme view of the situation; 
but no one can read the amiable latitudinarian sentiments 
of Dean Stanley, or the beautiful indefiniteness of Mat- 
thew Arnold, or the yet graver looseness of a London 



256 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

divine, who recently proposed the formation of a Chris- 
tian fraternity with Christianity left out, and not perceive 
that the drift is toward a charity that disregards prin- 
ciple, that imperils truth, and that threatens to substitute 
license for liberty. From the writings of these brilliant 
men, and from other works in circulation that treat the 
question more or less completely, it seems legitimate to 
infer that Liberalism regards itself as the only estimable 
thing in the universe, and as the only thing having rights 
which everyone should respect. Faithfulness to God's 
truth, conscientious convictions, devotion to law and 
order, it esteems as of secondary moment, and not to be 
brought into comparison with its own more vital interests. 
They who differ from its teachings it stigmatizes as 
bigots, and they who decline to give aid and comfort to 
its hazy notions, because they believe them to be per- 
nicious, it characterizes as persecutors; and then becomes 
as blind, obstinate, and ungenerous in its own assump- 
tions and defense as it conceives its adversaries to be in 
their resistance to its encroachments. Evidently there is 
something wrong in all this. Exaggeration and perver- 
sion exist somewhere. If this is the animus of modern 
Liberalism, it is as unattractive as ancient bigotry; and 
one could hardly have a choice between them. They are 
both fatal to religious growth and influence. If bigotry 
may be likened to a rifle that murders with a single bullet 
the spiritual susceptibilities of our nature, Liberalism may 
be compared to a shot-gun, which, with its numerous 
leaden pellets, can hardly fail to hit, tear, and slaughter. 
The only discernible choice between them is the prefer- 
ence one may have between being pierced or riddled. 

, In the New Testament, and particularly in the chapters 
from which the texts introducing this study are derived, 
the law of charity, as binding on churches and individuals, 
is very clearly stated and very fully discussed. " He that 



THE LAW OF CHARITY. 257 

is weak in the faith is to be received" — received into fel- 
lowship, but not to "doubtful disputations," or not to the 
impugning of motives and criticism of doctrines. Judged by 
what follows, the apostle has special reference to ritual and 
traditional observances, which Jewish Christians esteemed 
very highly, and desired their fellow-disciples to honor. 
The principle involved, however, seems to me susceptible 
of a wider application. Their attitude toward the cere- 
monial must have been occasioned by their view, or their 
conception of Christianity as a system. That it was a 
faulty view the entire argument of the apostle implies, 
and yet he is prepared to fraternize with those who held 
it. If their divergence from the Faith is not perfectly an- 
alogous, it is fairly comparable to that which is not infre- 
quently met with in our times. In every congregation there 
are those who entertain grave doubts regarding some 
rules governing the administration of ordinances, or some 
interpretations of important Scriptures. Nevertheless, be- 
cause they are not in full accord with the majority they 
are not to be treated as the enemies of truth. They are 
to be received, but not to any kind of disputation or 
wrangling. While they are entitled to respect, they, in 
their turn, are not to despise others. Toward each other 
they are to exercise mutual toleration; and here is 
brought to light what toleration always presupposes — 
namely, differences. It is an imjDossible grace where there 
is no disagreement. Is it not a solecism to speak of toler- 
ating the presence or the opinions of one with whom we 
have no controversy ? And yet professors of religion fre- 
quently use the term in this meaningless manner. They 
claim to be tolerant, and would wax indignant at any in- 
timation to the contrary; and yet when an actual case of 
dissidence occurs, even on points, such as amusements, 
over which, in general, the church has no control, or on 
moot-doctrines, such as the degree and nature of inspira- 
17 



258 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

tion, the philosophy and limits of atonement, and the 
precise character and extent of retribution, they ar^ 
censorious in their judgments, and are prepared to adopt 
the extremest measures. This is not charity. While 
charity "rejoiceth in the truth," it " beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things"; but that which beareth nothing, whatever else 
it may be, certainly is not charity. To call it by so sacred 
a name is like denominating that quality courage which 
parades itself in the season of safety but cowers and 
trembles on the approach of danger. 

Nor should it be overlooked that this grace ever leads 
its possessor to sacrifice his own liberty for the good of 
others. He will be 'careful not to put a stumbling-block 
or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. The man who 
has an appetite for strong drink may have no right to de- 
mand that the temperate shall abstain, and he may be 
very dictatorial and absurd in his reasoning; nevertheless, 
charity will constrain the Christian, if his example may 
cause another to offend, quietly and unostentatiously to 
refrain. A disciple of Christ will realize deeply that it is 
not his special business to care for himself, or proudly to 
stand for his own rights, but to aid his fellow-beings; 
and if such service can be better rendered by avoiding 
antagonism with what his broader vision sees to be 
ignorant prejudice, he will rather in the spirit of tolera- 
tion yield to the unreasonable than diminish his power for 
good. '' For meat " he will not " destroy the work of 
God;" but "will seek the profit of many, that they may 
be saved." 

But the exercise of this grace is not without limita- 
tions. On the one side the individual, remembering what 
Paul has said regarding his supreme responsibility to God, 
will not allow himself to be coerced by the conscience of 
other people into conformity with ideas and practices 



DUTY OF THE CHURCH. ^ 259 

which are unauthorized by clear Scripture warrant, even 
though, as a matter of expediency and in the enjoyment 
of liberty, he may be willing to adopt them. Here he 
finds the limit to his toleration; as Coleridge puts it, it is 
limited by the intolerance of others. And, on the other 
side, the church as a body, recalling the stress everywhere 
laid by the sacred writers on the importance of truth, on 
the duty of contending earnestly for the faith, on the obli- 
gation to walk in holiness and in every way worthy of the 
Christian vocation; and remembering the exhortation of 
the apostle "to give none offense," or, rather, to cause 
none to offend, the church itself being included, and "to 
follow after the things which make for peace, and things 
wherewith one may edify another," may not without 
guilt permit such radical divergence from the precepts, 
doctrines, and ordinances of the gospel as would set at 
naught these obligations. While she has no warrant to 
insist on subscription to man-made definitions, or to 
demand a strict adherence to the letter of her creed if its 
spirit is honestly maintained, or to exact such slavish sub- 
mission to her teaching's as would render investio-ation a 
crime, she is bound to forbid such departure from them as 
would wreck her unity, undermine her vitality and over- 
throw her authority. Liberality is here hedged in by the 
higher law of faithfulness. It is always easier to be liberal 
than it is to be true. When that which the church 
represents, and which she is set to defend, is imper- 
iled by the disloyalty of members, either in faith or in 
practice, toleration becomes a crime against the Headship 
of Christ and the welfare of humanity. Its limits have 
been reached. The church must clear herself of all com- 
plicity with the evil-doers. Charity to them means 
cruelty to the world. Up to this point she should bear and 
forbear; up to the promulgating of doctrines subversive 
of her essential nature, and destructive of her unity, she 



260 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

should patiently endure; but when that point is passed, 
the only recourse left is — separation. ''How can two 
walk together unless they be agreed ?" 

This, as I understand it, taken in connection with the 
more general and fully accepted principle that the civil 
government has no authority to regulate religious belief, 
is New Testament Liberalism. But that which sails under 
this flag in our day is something very different, and some- 
thing whose influence cannot but be regarded as preju- 
dicial to Christianity. 

Its questionable tendency may be inferred from its an- 
tagonism to definite statements of truth. Among its ad- 
vocates the opinion prevails that Christ's teachings are 
fluid, susceptible of various meanings, and comparable 
more to music than to doctrine. Hear Stopford Brooke 
on this point: "Neither you nor I can say of that air of 
Mozart's that it means this or that. It means one thing 
to me, another thing to you. It leaves, however, an in- 
definite but similar impression upon us both, — a sense of 
exquisite melody which soothes life, a love of a life in har- 
mony with the impressions made, and an affection for the 
man who gave us so delicate an emotion. So it is with 
the words of Christ. The understanding cannot define 
them; the spirit received them, and each man receives 
them in accordance with the state of his spirit." This, 
of course, is meant to be complimentary to " Him who 
spake as never man spake; " but in my judgment it is just 
the reverse. If it means anything it means either that 
Jesus had no truths to make known and hid the emptiness 
of His message beneath glittering generalities, or that He 
was not skillful enough to embody His thoughts in lan- 
guage. I am not willing to accept either reflection on 
His fitness to be the world's prophet, especially when it 
is evident that they who accuse Him of indefiniteness are 
seeking, at His expense, to justify their own rejection of 



VALUE OF DOGMA. 261 

the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. If it could for one 
moment be admitted, it would follow that religion has no 
specific faith, and consequently its claims to be an intel- 
ligible system would be absurd. 

Is it not possible for every clear idea to be accurately 
stated ? and, if it is to be communicated, niust it not be 
stated ? and if it is thus stated, does it not become a doc- 
trine ? Now, what objection can there be to such an ex- 
pression of what is really believed ? Scientists, philoso- 
phers and legislators would never expect to enrich the 
race with practical knowledge if they were to adopt a 
gushing, loose, sentimental style. They aim at exactness, 
dogmatic exactness, and we would not have it otherwise. 
How can it be hoped that religious knowledge can be suc- 
cessfully imparted in any other way ? Indeed, I do not 
suppose that anyone really thinks that it can. How- 
ever liberal a teacher may be, he does not hesitate to 
affirm his faith in God, and it is only when he comes to 
doctrines which he cannot accept that he begins to talk 
his vague nonsense about " slavish, arrogant, and barren 
dogma." But we are not deceived; it is not the verbal 
proposition he dislikes, it is the idea it conveys. Then let 
him just say so. Let him say, I reject such or such a 
doctrine, because I am convinced it is false, not because it 
is wrong to define it accurately. Were he to do this the 
world would see that the difference between him and 
other Christians is not in the breadth of their generous- 
ness, but in the range of their belief. But as it is, his 
unguarded denunciation of dogma is calculated to leave 
on the mind of the people the impression that there is no 
such thing as Christian truth, or, at least, nothing specific 
enough to be of any particular value. 

Such an effect, surely, is to be deplored. Modern Lib- 
eralism claims that it is more interested in conduct than 
in creed. So is orthodoxy. But can it be proven that 



262 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

the one is independent of the other ? I venture to say 
that it cannot. Back of every noble life there are prin- 
ciples which have fashioned it. I am not going to say 
that these principles must be identical with the evangel- 
ical faith, though I think it would be better if they were; 
but only that they must be adequate. Every worthy 
character has its basis in truth, as the most enduring 
structure has its foundation in the rock. Now my objec- 
tion to Liberalism is, not that it cannot subscribe to evan- 
gelical teachings, but that its antagonism to definitions, 
consistently followed, involves all that it may suggest for 
the guidance of life in such indistinctness and doubt that 
principles of any kind must be impossible. That this is 
its influence may be inferred from the lax morality which 
is developing on every side. Every religious community 
feels the presence of this Ism more or less potently, and 
in proportion as it is felt indifference to obligation is pain- 
fully manifest. And never may we hope for a change 
until truth is restored to its lawful place in the life, and 
its dogmatic specificness, as well as its authority, is can- 
didly acknowledged. 

The questionable tendency of genial laxity may also be 
inferred from its incompatibility with order. God evi- 
dently dislikes confusion, fitfulness, and irregularity; for 
everywhere in the universe we discover their opposite. 
Southey has said, " Order is the sanity of the mind, the 
health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of 
the state;" and Carlyle has declared that "disorder vera- 
cious created nature, even because it is not chaos and a 
waste-whirling fantasm, rejects and disowns." When 
carelessness prevails in the home there will be boisterous 
tongues, fretfulness, neglect, and general untidiness and 
unthriftiness; when it obtains in the state there will be 
distrust, oppression, insurrections, and hourly danger to 
life and property; and when it is transferred to the 



THE QUESTION" OF ORDER. 263 

church there will be contentions, impatience, grumbling; 
inconsistency in life and indefiniteness in aim; or having 
repudiated government, doctrines and ordinances, there 
may be sweetness and sentimentality, but there will be 
little consecration or concentration in religious work. 
Verily, as Hooker said many years ago, " Of law there can 
be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom 
of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in 
heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling 
her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her 
power." 

The primary assumption of latitudinarians that the 
church should be a common receptacle for all kinds of con- 
tradictory teachings and speculations is utterly destructive 
of everything like order. It may read beautifully in theory; 
but what does it actually mean in practice ? To realize such 
an ideal one of two conditions must be complied with — 
either the members must consent to have no ideas or they 
must agree never to express them. But if they have 
none, an organization is superfluous, for there is nothing 
of sufficient interest to draw them together; and if they 
have some, and fail to avow them, it is still difficult to see 
how, without either object or motive, they could effect 
anything like an organic union. Then supposing that 
they have convictions, differing as radically as those 
which now separate various denominations of Christians, 
and honestly express them, and conscientiously believe 
that religious effort should be determined by them, how 
can strife, contention, and the consequent paralysis of 
endeavor be avoided ? If it shall be suggested that every 
member of the church, with those who may sympathize 
with him, would work as his conscience dictates, and 
others could do the same, no possible advantage, but only 
disadvantage, would accrue to the whole body from the 
arrangement. It would simply be another form of exist- 



264 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

ing sectarianism, with this difference, that the sects would 
all be represented in one single community, and the close- 
ness of their intimacy, and the antagonisms to which their 
conflicting interests would give rise, would render any- 
thing like government impracticable. Thus, there seems 
to be an insurmountable difficulty in the way of attaining to 
order on the basis of Liberalism. Now, what the world 
requires to-day is something more than diffusive and senti- 
mental good nature. It needs philanthropic effort, concen- 
trated and well-directed endeavor, which can only proceed 
from bodies — bodies complete and in substantial har- 
mony. Sin is in earnest, crime is intensely so, and they 
both strengthen their hold on humanity by evil confed- 
eracies, and at least are strong enough to defy the attacks 
of such undisciplined forces as Liberalism can bring into 
the field. If Christianity is to succeed, it must be in ear- 
nest, too, and if it is, then it must build up organizations 
on a definite faith, having a common aim, and a united 
heart. Only through such means can it expect to prevail 
against the foes which swarm around it, seeking its utter 
overthrow. 

Believe me, we shall attain more speedily the harmony 
of views, and the victory over evil which we all so long to 
achieve by faithfulness than by this perversion of charity. 
So much is now said in praise of this latter grace that we 
h^ve quite overlooked the higher and nobler one — Faith- 
fulness. And yet it is the heroic quality — that to which 
we can trace not only the preservation, but the progress 
of religion; that which sheltered the infant church, de- 
fended her purity from tyrants, and guarded her life from 
corruption. How many volumes have been written to 
record the victories of freedom, of prayer, of love, and 
how much has even been ascribed to the unsettling influ- 
ence of infidelity. Doubtless they all have been potent; 
but the deeds of Faithfulness will compare with any of 



THE THREAD OF HOi^OR. 265 

them. It was Faithfulness that saved Christianity when 
threatened by the Empire, that rescued it from Romanism, 
and that deUvered it from Secularism. But for her it 
would have been exterminated by the one, paganized 
by the other, and thoroughly corrupted by the third. 
Faithfulness defied the emperors, sang her song to the 
accompaniment of growling lions in the arena, wrote her 
belief on dungeon walls, and shouted it amid the hiss 
and the roar of martyr-fires. Faithfulness prayed when 
others cursed, circulated the gospel while others slept, 
contended for every inch of the ground with error, detect- 
ed its devices, resisted its encroachments, thrust her bleed- 
ing form in the way of its progress, and when crushed, rose 
again to pluck from its hand the victory it had nearly won. 
Let this magnificent record assure you that your usefulness 
will be measured by your loyalty more than by your liber- 
ality, and that your success in overcoming the enemies of 
Christ, and in harmonizing His friends, w411 depend more 
on your fidelity to principle than on your tolerance of error. 
Both graces are of the highest moment; but let it never be 
overlooked that the beautifying one is charity, while the 
practical one is faithfulness. So sublime is this virtue that 
it excites admiration even in its enemies. Frederick Rob- 
ertson, when illustrating the poetic sentiment in conduct, 
describes how a company of soldiers were separated from 
their command among the mountains of India, and how 
they were butchered by the hill tribes. When their bodies 
were found, around the wrist of each dead soldier was tied 
a red thread, a tribute which the savage foe had paid to 
their valor. It signified that the men fell at their post, 
and by fidelity had won this red thread of honor. Singu- 
lar treatment this, but not uncommon. Whenever Faith- 
fulness has shown herself in this feculent w^orld she has 
been pelted with mud. Literary scullions, reputationless 
hirelings, the low camp-followers of vice and degradation, 



266 ISMS OLD A]S"D KEW. 

have never hesitated to chase her up and down the streets 
and trample her in the mire. Nor may she ever look for 
a more kindly reception while society remains the coarse 
and vulgar and ungenerous thing that it is. But it is not 
for her to be dismayed. In patience she must possess her 
soul. The hounds may bay on! The devils may howl ! No 
devil yet has ever been able to stamp out the glory of 
an angel's plumage; and no breath of slander and no 
attack of calculating maliciousness shall ever perma- 
nently stain the robe of Faithfulness or mar her beauty. 
Enemies may assault her; they may cast her body into 
the vale beneath the height on which she dwells; but 
even in their dastard hearts there will be found a lurk- 
ing admiration for what they cannot imitate; for while 
they curse they will twine the red thread of honor round 
her wrist. They cannot but reverence what they would 
destroy; and future generations, when these enemies lie 
ignobly forgotten in the dust, will rise up and call her 
blessed, — and motive this for every heart to give her 
loyal entertainment. 



FORMALISM. 

" The good Lord pardon everyone that prepareth his heart to 
seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed 
according to the purification of the sanctuary." 2 Ghron. xxx, 19. 

" Ceremony leads her bigots forth, 
Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth ; 
"While truths on which eternal things depend 
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend; 
As soldiers watch the signal of command, 
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand ; 
Happy to fill religion's vacant place 
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace." 

Cowper. 

WHEN Goethe was a boy the controversies which 
agitated religious circles, and which resulted in the 
secession from the established church of the Separatists, 
Pietists, and Moravians, impressed his precocious mind 
very deeply, and led him to devise a worship of his own. 
The young priest felt that the Almighty should not be 
approached through ecclesiastical ceremonies, but through 
the things which He had made; and yet, instead of com- 
muning directly with Him through nature, he patterned 
after the very ritualists from whom he dissented, and 
reared unto Him an artificial altar. A red-lacquered music- 
stand, beautifully ornamented, and rising like a four-sided 
pyramid, was chosen as the foundation of his pious work. 
This he covered with ores and other natural curiosities, 
crowning the summit with a fine porcelain saucer, from 
which he desired a flame to ascend emblematical of the 
heart's aspirations. How to produce this flame occasioned 
him some perplexity; but at last his ingenuity suggested 

267 



268 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

the use of fumigating pastiles, which, though they would 
only sputter and sparkle, would at least emit a pleasant 
fragrance. The arrangements being perfected, and, kin- 
dling his pastiles one fine morning, with the aid of a 
burning-glass, he performed his devotion in an edifying 
manner, and to his own entire satisfaction. But the 
course of worship, like that of true love, is not always 
smooth, and Goethe found that his experiment was 
doomed to meet with ignominious disaster. Undertaking 
to repeat his adorations, he discovered, when too late, 
that the porcelain dish had been removed, and that his 
aromatic cones must be placed directly on the upper sur- 
face of the music-stand. In that position they were kin- 
dled, and the result was that they mercilessly burned into 
the red lacquer and the gold flowers, sadly and ineff aceably 
marring the beautiful and valuable work of art. The 
effect of the mischief, as may easily be imagined, was not 
conducive to piety. What the youth said on the occasion 
is not recorded; but in his Autobiography, where this 
narrative in his own words is found, we have the following 
reflections on the occurrence: "The spirit for new offer- 
ings was gone, and the accident might almost be consid- 
ered a hint and warning of the danger there always is in 
wishing to approach the Deity in such a way." 

Had the boy been content to draw near to God by " the 
true and living way," in lowliness and simplicity, his ardor 
would have escaped the chill it experienced on account of 
this absurd anti-climax, and probably would have saved 
his manhood from moral blemishes and irremediable mis- 
takes. The old saying, " the child is father to the man," 
was never more completely verified than in the case of 
Goethe. He was essentially artistic in his tastes. His 
religion was gesthetical, not ethical and devotional. In 
after years we recognize in his writings the spirit of the 
boy-ritualist. He has passed from altar-building to litera- 



CEREMONY AMOKG SAVAGES. 269 

ture, and yet his literature is a kind of altar, reared, how- 
ever, more to nature than to God. It seems impossible 
for him to rise higher than the outward and visible; and 
when his pages gleam with religious sentiments we find 
that they are excited by the sublime and beautiful in 
God's works, and not by any deep discernment of what 
God is in Himself. His to^^-worship is indeed abandoned 
forever, but he remains in heart to the end a formalist; 
delighting in creation, his genius thrilling with its won- 
ders, but never, apparently, rejoicing in the Creator, or 
feeling the influences of His spirit. 

Humanity at large in tliis respect is not very unlike the 
poet-philosopher. From its infancy to the present it has 
manifestly tended toward some species of ceremonialism, 
or mere outwardness; has inclined toward the multiplicity 
of observances ; and in magnifying their value beyond 
measure, it has frequently lost sight of the realities and 
the essence of religion. Herbert Spencer, in one of his 
latest works, has very amply shown that punctilious cour- 
tesy and minute formality in social and national relations 
do not mark the highest civilization; but that among such 
savage people as the Ashantees and Loangoes they receive 
the most scrupulous attention. Thus, ^' in the kingdom of 
Uganda, where, directed by the king to try a rifle present- 
ed to him by Speke, a page went to the door and shot the 
first man he saw in the distance; and where, as Stanley 
tells us, under the last king, Suna, five days were occupied 
in cutting up thirty thousand prisoners who had surren- 
dered, we find that an officer observed to salute infor- 
mally is ordered for execution, while another, who, per- 
haps, exposes an inch of naked leg while squatting, or has 
his mhuyit tied contrary to regulations, is condemned to 
the same fate." This excessive respect for the trivialities 
of social intercourse, and the heartlessness exhibited in 
maintaining their authority, indicate that among these 



270 ISMS OLD AN^D NEW. 

people ceremony is substituted for politeness, and the 
symbols of reverence for its spirit. A similar inversion 
makes up what we mean by Formalism in religion — the 
sign is taken for the thing signified, and the soul is satis- 
fied with the name instead of the substance — as one might 
be content to live on the menu instead of the meal. When 
the church service is composed of innumerable and unin- 
telligible rites, which burden the conscience without re- 
fining the heart; and when its rubric prescribes the precise 
manner in which devotion shall find expression, we have 
Formalism. When Brother Martin finds the priests, who 
have just been conducting mass, laughing and joking at 
the credulity of their flock, to employ no harsher term, he 
has an exhibition of Formalism; and when the sacred 
duties which spring from our relations w^th the Supreme 
and with each other are fulfilled as a matter of course and 
from sheer necessity, or when the simplest worship is per- 
formed from worldly motives, and emptied of all sympathy 
and interest. Formalism is as apparent as it is in him who 
smiles his congratulations through hyena eyes, snarls his 
compliments through canine teeth, and commends his love 
with the serpent's clammy, slimy touch. This is Formal- 
ism, and toward it there is an ever-recurring trend. 

It is met in connection with, perhaps, every historical 
faith. The simple cult of the Veda was crushed beneath 
the weight of Brahminical observances; the primitive free- 
dom of Buddhism fell a prey to Lamaistic superstitions; 
the pious feelings of the Romans were strangled by the 
rigid clutch of prosaic divinities; the Greek religion, which 
was conquered, like their country, in the hands of its new 
adherents degenerated into endless mummeries and theat- 
rical 23omposities; the spirituality of Judaism was at last 
fatally hampered with the dead body of narrow, literalistic 
and bigoted pharisaism; while Christianity itself, the most 
unfettered of all systems, and requiring more heart in its 



ROMANISTS AND PROTESTANTS. 271 

service than any other, has been equally distorted and 
travestied by ritualists on the one hand, and by nominal- 
ists on the other. To-day the empire of faith suffers as 
much from this cause as from any that can be specified. 
Romanists announce a salvation which is inseparable from 
ceremonial observance, and have so interblended and inter- 
mixed ritual with ethics that it is next to impossible for 
an ordinary mind to discriminate between them. While 
the coherence of this organization is wonderful; for, judged 
by what is known of it in Europe and America, it is a vast 
and complicated machine, well oiled with promises of eter- 
nal felicity, it affords very little opportunity for the free 
play of the heart. Indeed, whatever degree of heartiness 
is in it is there as a foreign element, unprovided for in its 
arrangements, and unnecessary to their execution. High- 
churchism errs in the same direction, if not to the same 
extent, while the various Protestant bodies, though wisely 
and rightly discarding the temptation to formality which 
exists elsewhere, have not altogether escaped from its 
deadening influence. 

It is to be remembered that it is possible, even where 
the forms are few, bare and unassuming. For instance, 
when a creed is upheld by one who has no deep, genu- 
ine and practical belief in what it teaches, or when the 
importance of intellectual subscription is exaggerated 
over soul affiliation, how shall this be justly character- 
ized? Or, if the plainest dress is worn as a badge 
of distinction, for the empty purpose of asserting un- 
worldliness, and the significance of the garment be for- 
gotten in the transactions of ordinary life, what name 
ought to be applied to such inconsistency? Or, still 
further, if ordinances are looked upon as talismans and 
charms, and substituted for the blessings they denote; if 
the lips are eloquent with praise while the heart is far 
from God; and if the service of the sanctuary becomes 



272 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

frigid, stiff, and perfunctory, — the echo from a sepulcher, 
and the rattle of a fleshless corpse, — how shall such a 
shoaly, skinny, viscerated piety be described ? Each of 
these questions is answered by a single term, "Formal- 
ism;" for evidently we confront in each of these cases 
what the Savior condemns in the pharisees who paid 
" tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, while they neglect- 
ed the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and 
faith." 

Against this evil the Scriptures constantly utter their 
warning. They do so even when urging compliance with 
all the outward requirements of religion. Certainly they 
are far from treating contemptuously the ordinances or 
duties which have been solemnly sanctioned by the Spirit. 
These externals have their place in the divine economy, 
and they are neither to be treated with disrespect nor 
ignored. We are exhorted, at least by implication, to 
" keep the ordinances as they were delivered " to us, to 
"maintain the form of sound words," and to be faithful to 
the profession made before many witnesses. Nor is it 
practicable altogether to dispense with shadows, symbols, 
and particular observances. " It is difficult," says the 
Greek philosopher, " fully to exhibit greater things with- 
out the aid of patterns; " and Lord Bacon insists on "the 
indispensableness of similitudes." Figures in action, as 
w^ell as of speech, are the means by which our faith reveals 
itself, asserts and communicates its message to mankind. 
It is impossible to teach without words, which are the 
signs of ideas; and it is equally so to sustain an organiza- 
tion without some recognized external order, or to conduct 
divine worship without some appropriate ceremony. These 
things give definiteness, shape and expression to beliefs, 
thoughts and convictions, which, apart from them, would 
be somewhat 'indistinct to their possessors, and totally 
valueless, because intangible, to the world. Consequently 



SPIRITUALITY OF THE HEBREWS. 273 

the New Testament, as well as the Old, has its laws, rites, 
and symbols. It describes a church which is not air- 
built, vague, or phantom-like, but a substantial, well- 
founded, and visible institution. It is clothed upon with 
a body, and, though in comparison wdth the opaque Jewish 
dispensation it may be a very transparent one, it is yet as 
real as the texture of the crystal through w^hose flinty 
pores the light streams, and in whose rocky heart it de- 
lights to dwell. And, to follow this illustration, the 
church, like the unflawed crystal, while it has a definite 
form, is permeable with spiritual light, and is to be careful 
neither to obstruct its incoming, nor its indwelling and 
outgoing. 

This duty was not entirely overlooked among the 
ancient Jews. Though their religion was eminently ritual- 
istic, — and, remembering the peculiarity of their position, 
we ought not to be surprised that it was, — their prophets 
frequently taught, and their most notable men discerned, 
that the ceremonial, however important, was secondary in 
value to the spiritual, and subordinate to its culture. The 
Psalms of David may be taken as fairly exhibiting the 
recognition of this distinction. There we meet with praises 
and prayers which have been appropriated by the devout 
of all ages as the language of their heart's deepest and 
loftiest experiences. 

From the chronicle of which our text is part we have 
an instance of enlightened discrimination in this direction. 
Hezekiah summoned the people to Jerusalem to keep the 
Passover, but many of them had no opportunity to comply 
with the ceremonial requirements which qualified for par- 
ticipation, and consequently they approached the solemn 
rite in what is described as an unsanctified condition. 
But on this account they were not thrust aside. The 
king realized the vital significance of the celebration to 
Israel, and, under the circumstances, permitted anyone to 
18 



274 ISMS Old ai^d i^ew. 

come who prepared his heart, though "he had not been 
cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary." 
He did not question the binding authority of the ceremo- 
nial law which had been neglected; for he prays that all 
who are unable to keep it might be pardoned; but he does 
not exalt it to such a height as to leave the impression 
that its observance outweighed in value the preparation of 
the heart. In this estimate he but follows the judgment 
of Samuel, who said that to "obey is better than sacri- 
fice, and to hearken than the fat of rams; " and anticipated 
Isaiah, who in ringing words denounced the formal fasting 
that failed " to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the 
heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break 
every yoke." Moses also distinguished between the letter 
and the spirit; for he urged the people to circumcise the 
foreskin of the heart, as did Jeremiah in another age; and 
the promises of God maintained in the nation a distinct 
recognition of the superior glory of the latter. 

Christianity was announced in language such as this: 
"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out 
my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters 
shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your 
young men shall see visions;" "I will pour water upon 
him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will 
pour my Spirit upon thy soul, and my blessing upon thine 
oif spring; " and that these predictions might be accom- 
plished the Savior said: " It is expedient for you that I go 
away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come 
unto you; but if I depart I will send Him unto you." 
Peter, on the day of Pentecost, announced that this sacred 
pledge had been fulfilled: "Therefore, being by the right 
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father 
the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, 
which ye now see and hear; " and Paul, contrasting the 
Jewish economy with the Christian, and having in view 



THE LAW OF PROPORTIONS. 275 

the comparative freedom of the latter from ritual, and its 
completer possession of the Sanctifier, calls it " the minis- 
tration of the Spirit." These representations from both 
Testaments, combined with our Lord's solemn warnings 
uttered on the Mount against formality, and Paul's de- 
scription of it as a " form of godliness, denying the power 
thereof," are enough to show that this is a tremendous 
evil; one that is to be resisted, and one from whose influ- 
ence the Almighty is seeking our deliverance. 

Possibly we may be brought into closer sympathy with 
the Divine mind on this subject by examining the true 
relations of form to spirit, the limitations governing them, 
and the reasons why they should be conscientiously recog- 
nized and respected. 

First, it seems evident that form should adequately 
express, but never obscure, the spiritual. Just as too 
many words hide the idea they are designed to convey, 
and just as excess of light blinds the eyes it is ordained to 
illuminate, so too numerous ceremonials darken the truth 
which they are supposed to adumbrate. We know there 
is a kind of choir music which fails to excite in the heart 
emotions of praise, because it appeals overwhelmingly 
to artistic appreciation. Were it less operatic it would 
be more devotional in its influences. Congregational 
singing has this to be said in its favor, that as all 
share in it no one can easily lapse into the position of 
critic; and however inharmonious and inmelodious it may 
be, and unfortunately it is generally both, as it is the 
effort of each individual to worship, it stimulates devout- 
ness in spite of discord. As music may so charm the ear 
that its religious value is measurably, if not totally, lost, 
so elaborate rites challenge so powerfully the sense that 
they fail to penetrate and influence the soul. Hence, it 
has been observed that in proportion as ceremonial observ- 
ances are multiplied spirituality declines. Of the truth of 



276 ISMS OLD A^-D I^EW. 

this position such countries as Spain, Italy, and Mexico, 
long subject to the sway of a sacerdotal system, afford 
abundant proof. With them, for many centuries, religion 
has been so much a matter of form that they have lost 
sight of its spiritual aspects, and in doing so have deterio- 
rated in other respects. Victor Hugo, arraigning the 
church of Rome on the charge of blighting the nations 
where her superstitious observances have been most intol- 
erantly enforced and most abjectly obeyed, points to the 
two great Catholic centers, and says: "Look at the first 
of these lands, Italy, the mother of genius and of nations, 
which has spread over the world the most brilliant marvels 
of poetry and art; Italy, which taught mankind to read, 
know^s not how to read. Gaze on Spain, which received 
from the Romans her first civilization, from the Arabs her 
second, and from Providence a world, — America ! But 
Rome has robbed her of the secret power w^hich she had 
from the Romans, the genius of art which she had from 
the Arabs, and the world which she had from God." Do 
you remind me that the Frenchman, in this invective, is 
laying stress on the persecuting spirit of the Papacy? 
Granted; but this very spirit is the outgrowth, of ritual- 
ism. Beneath its weight the sense of right and w^rong, of 
conscience and charity, was deadened, and in its place 
arose that haughty intolerance which, drenching itself in 
blood, furnishes the best of reasons for restricting outward 
observances to their God-appointed limits. 

Among the Jews, as I have already intimated, types, 
shadows, symbols, prevailed beyond what is authorized by 
Christianity. This is to be accounted for by the fact that 
Judaism was a preparative system. It w^as God's ordained 
instrumentality for the introduction of certain fundamental 
ideas into the w^orld, for which there existed no adequate 
verbal equivalents, and w^hich had to be revealed through 
visible institutions and picturesque enactments. The ideas 



SIGNIFICANCE OF SYMBOLS. 277 

of "holiness," "atonement," "mediation," were thus im- 
ported and fixed, and then the ceremonies which had per- 
formed this service, like nuggets of gold, were melted and 
coined into words, which retain the significance derived 
from them to this day. When the end for which they had 
been set apart was accomplished they were dispensed with 
as henceforward unnecessary, and in their place came the 
written gospel which is given to every man "to profit 
withal." This corresponds to the truth, as the letter does 
to the type, and the study of its teachings ministers to 
holiness. Christianity also has a few expressive signs that 
appeal to the senses, and through them to the heart. It 
has symbolical rites, such as baptism and the Lord's sup- 
per; and it has ethical and pietistical forms, such as alms- 
giving, prayer and praise, which may properly be thus 
characterized, as they have definite visibility. All of these 
are so closely related to important religious truths that, 
when properly honored, they become their vehicle and 
their mirror. Thus praise and prayer suggest the ideas 
of human dependence and of divine providence; alms- 
giving, the surrender of self and its possessions to the 
service of God and man; baptism, the resurrection of 
Christ with all it imports, and the Supper, the twin mys- 
teries of incarnation and atonement. But when these acts 
are exaggerated, perverted or degraded, they obscure the 
system which they were appointed to irradiate. When 
baptism is administered to adult or child as a means of 
salvation, how seriously is the grace of God narrowed and 
impugned; when the Lord's Supper is given with a similar 
end in view, how is the atonement of Christ caricatured 
and darkened; or when almsgiving and other excellent 
works are credited with so much merit that the Almighty 
may become debtor to the creature, what a grievous mis- 
representation of religion is imposed upon the world. 
Under the circumstances the outward aspects of Chris- 



278 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

tianity become a curse; for generating errors, sanctioning 
monstrous absurdities, and burdening the conscience, they 
tend to alienate thoughtful men from its support and to 
debase those who sustain its authority. These considera- 
tions indicate the importance of proportioning aright the 
symbol to the substance, and of sacredly conserving the 
design of its institution. Only in this way can it be of 
service to the truth, and as it is contrary to common sense 
and Scripture to suppose that it might have been estab- 
lished for any other reason, the obligation to restrict it to 
its legitimate sphere and office is imperative. 

Secondly, it seems equally clear that form should effect- 
ively supplement, but never subordinate, the spiritual. 
We know how the solemnities of public worship intensify 
devotion, how acts of charity tend to deepen benevolence, 
how verbal confessions strengthen faith, how ordinances 
vivify belief, and how religious acts in general, undertaken 
with genuine heartiness, contribute to growth in grace 
and to advancement in the life divine. When the out- 
ward thus waits upon the soul, ministering to its sanctifi- 
cation, we feel that it is conforming to heaven's plan. 
But when it rejects this lowly but useful mission, and in- 
sists on its claims at the expense of the spiritual, it mani- 
festly transgresses its prerogative. The Scriptures teach 
that the spirit of the gospel is worth more than the letter; 
that Christ Himself must henceforward be known " not 
after the flesh, but after the spirit"; and that the inner 
motive prompting a sacrifice is of greater value than the 
measure of the sacrifice itself, as in the case of the widow 
whose mite outweighed the treasury full of gifts which 
pride donated from its superabundance. Moreover, the 
Savior intimates that whenever the interests of the formal 
and the spiritual come into collision the first must give 
precedence to the second. Thus, for instance, when He 
does good on the Sabbath day, His defense is not that the 



MAGNIFYING THE SPIRITUAL. 279 

fourth commandment is abrogated, but that ritual is sec- 
ondary in importance to philanthropy. "The Sabbath 
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." It was 
appointed for his welfare and happiness; but if some regu- 
lation regarding the observance must under no circum- 
stances be violated, — if the house that is on fire may not 
be rescued on the Sabbath, nor the ship that is drifting 
on the rocks be saved, — then the day ceases to be a boon 
to humanity. Our Lord protested against this narrow in- 
terpretation, as He would against that which could con- 
demn David for eating the shewbread which was cere- 
monially forbidden him. The hunger of the psalmist was 
his justification in setting aside a merely ritualistic regu- 
lation, and Jesus in sanctioning his conduct develops an 
important principle. 

The principle is, that the external aspect of Christian- 
ity should be subordinated to the well-being of the soul. 
Thus if the manner or method of worship is found to work 
detrimentally, we may order it in such a way as to pro- 
mote the end it is designed to secure. A failure to do 
this, because our fathers cherished it, or because venerable 
men arranged it, evinces a sentimentalism bordering on 
superstition, which will parch and wither the religious life. 
If we confront a positive ordinance, such as baptism, which 
we have no right to change as we have the man-appointed 
regulations of worship, it should be received only at a time 
when the recipient is conscious that it will advance his 
spirituality. For it to be thrust upon the unbeliever is to 
exalt it unduly, and to invest it with a rank that does not 
pertain to it. If one comes to the Lord's supper who has 
not complied with all the orderly prerequisites, and who is 
impelled by a hunger of soul to approach uninvited, the 
church, while she does not approve his irregularity, yet, 
lest a too rigid enforcement of the ritual may be inter- 
preted adversely to her charity, and may in some way 



280 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

injuriously affect the applicant, is bound to remember that 
David ate the shewbread, which was ceremonially unlaw- 
ful for him to eat, and not inderdict the coming of one to 
the Lord's table whose hunger is even deeper than his. 
Were this principle generally recognized, and generally 
accepted as a guiding rule, there would be more freedom 
and more fervid delight in God's service everywhere, and 
less danger of falling into listless, perfunctory and exact- 
ing ceremonialism. It would deepen the impression that 
soul preparation is more important than anything else, 
and then care would be bestowed primarily on that, and 
everything else being held subordinate, we should approx- 
imate in all of our congregations to that worship which is 
bounded neither by Jerusalem nor Gerizim, but which is 
as broad as the Savior's love, and which, in its essence, is 
spirit and truth, — "For God is a Spirit, and they that 
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 

Thirdly. It also seems reasonable that form should 
sufficiently adorn, but never supersede or supplant, the 
spiritual. Within proper limits, especially those suggested 
already, it is eminently fitting that we should invest both 
the Christian church and Christian character with what- 
ever may enhance their beauty. Works of righteousness 
attractive in themselves may receive an added grace from 
the manner in which they are wrought. These constitute 
the ritual of individual daily life, and when they are per- 
formed thoughtfully, gently, sweetly, they influence as 
much by their loveliness as by their worth. There is 
indeed a kind of moral worth in beauty, to which the con- 
science instinctively renders homage. No man can afford 
to be good uncouthly or carelessly. There are types of 
piety that repel; some that are gunpowderish, sensitive 
and explosive; others that are tomahawkish, sharp and 
censorious, and yet others that are edgeless, indefinite and 
colorless. These specimens, naturally enough, are disliked. 



THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 281 

and they are but a little in advance of that which, for 
reasons satisfactory to itself, determines that its good 
shall never be evil spoken of, by doing no good whatever 
to call forth remark. As the individual is not to be indif- 
ferent to the beautiful, so neither should the church. Her 
house of worship may be as imposing and attractive as art 
can make it, as long as the investment yields an adequate 
profit in spiritual results, and the outlay can be afforded 
by the congregation. The public offices of worship should 
be rendered impressive and satisfactory to refined taste as 
well as to devout impulses, provided always, as has already 
been argued, that they do not obscure the essentials of 
Christianity. No other rule upon this point can be laid 
down. This simple restriction will prove sufficient to 
guard against excess, and when it is respected, the beauty 
of holiness will never jeopardize the integrity of holiness. 

It is surely unnecessary to add that no perfection of 
the form will be accepted by God as a substitute for the 
reality. The one cannot supersede the 'other; and of the 
two, the second is preferable and indispensable. If ye 
fast to be seen of men, if ye pray to be praised of men, if 
ye give to be honored by men, verily ye have your reward. 
Ye seek human approval, and " he that soweth to the flesh 
shall of the flesh reap"; were ye to purpose these things 
in your heart, and perform them unto God, God would 
not forget your self-denying labor of love. The service of 
the lip and the empty sacrifice of the body the Almighty 
does not regard. As in the days of Samuel, He judges 
not by the countenance or stature, but by the heart, and 
if other motive were wanting, this ought to be sufficient 
to convince us that Formalism is a dreary, worthless piece 
of theatricality, from which every genuine soul should 
turn away with scorn and contempt. 

Sometimes when near the sea I have been sadly im- 
pressed witli the dry, stunted, dwarfed and naked trees 



282 iSMS OLD AN-D NEW. 

struggling to preserve their hold on life amid barren 
wastes and in the chill, brackish air. On the island known 
as Martha's Vineyard I have frequently wandered among 
the thin, attenuated oaks, — meager shadows of their giant 
brotherhood, — and have mourned the bitterness of their 
heritage. Their wretched branches in one direction bent 
seem to reveal a desire to break from their rootage and 
escape the storm; while their ragged foliage, whitened by 
the flying sand and the dust of pulverized shells, proclaims 
that their enemy has prevailed against them, imparting to 
them the visage of death, and shrouding them for the grave 
before they have quite perished from the earth. Alas! for 
the poor, miserable, tattered, discolored and faded "cum- 
berers of the ground." Perhaps than themselves there 
is nothing more pitiable in this pitiable world, unless it is 
that which they appropriately figure, — a soulless, sapless, 
shriveled church. Seeking to thrive in a worldly atmos- 
phere, rooted in barren professions, bearing no fruit, and 
maintaining only the semblance of existence, such a 
church cannot long survive. It will soon wear the com- 
plexion of death; speedily will its gorgeous ritual become 
as the mummy's rags, and its beauty expire as the moth. 
Over such a withered, emaciated, undersized representa- 
tive of Christianity one could weep for very shame, and 
pray for some good woodman's ax to smite the pigmy, or 
some burst of Heaven's indignation to level it with the 
earth. God grant that our unuttered prayer may be 
answered, and that for every lifeless church destroyed, 
one may spring up which shall be like the tree described 
by Daniel, — "whose height reached unto the heaven, and 
the sight thereof to all the earth; whose leaves were fair, 
and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; 
under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose 
branches the fowls of heaven had their habitations." 

Hegel assumes that, while " the artist makes for the 



THE SUPREME REQUIREMENT. 283 

expression of his spiritual conceptions stones, colors and 
sensuous forms," the idea is of paramount importance, 
and must be in the mind, even though unconsciously, 
before it can be presented for the contemplation of others. 
In applying this principle to Greek art he shows "that 
the human being elaborated his physical being in free, 
beautiful movements before the attempt was made to give 
them expression in marbles or paintings." The archetype 
of all subsequent triumphs with chisel and brush origi- 
nated in the development of the body, was naturally trans- 
ferred to the mind, and from thence reproduced itself in 
plastic stone. Such also is the sublime law of Christ's 
kingdom. "Ye must be born again," is its primary and 
supreme requirement. When the moral nature receives 
the divine image through regeneration, then will it impart 
the same to the otherwise lifeless material of public wor- 
ship and of private duty. Then will it mold and fashion 
the humblest ceremony into a heavenly likeness, and 
breathe upon the simplest acts a heavenly grace. First, 
the soul must be spiritual, then it will spiritualize every- 
thing about it, and the ideal kingdom be realized. There- 
fore I close this discussion with one appeal, one repre- 
sentation, one distinct assertion, the echo of our Lord's 
own words to Nicodemus, and which j)oints the way, not 
merely to personal peace and usefulness, but to the funda- 
mental condition of spirituality, without which the church 
is as a whited sepulcher and as a tinkling cymbal: — 
"Ye must be born again." 



DENOMINATIONALISM. 



But now are they many members, yet but one body." 1 Cor. xii, 20. 

" Here all the rage of controversy ends, 
And rival zealots rest like bosom friends; 
An Athanasian here in deep repose 
Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes; 
Socinians here with Calvinists abide, 
And thin partitions angry chiefs divide ; 
Here wily Jesuits, simple Quakers meet, 
And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet. 
Great authors, for the church's glory fired, 
Are, for the church's peace, to rest retired ; 



For most she fears the controversial pen. 
The holy strife of disputatious men ; 
Who the blest gospel's peaceful page explore. 
Only to fight against its precepts more." 

George Crabhe. 

THERE is a widespread impression that the denomina- 
tionalism of Christianity and the conflicts of doc- 
trinal opinion within the limits of its different sects seri- 
ously militate against its super-mundane origin and char- 
acter. On this ground Lord Herbert attempted to justify 
his Theism; and in the judgment of many did so with 
remarkable force, if not with entire success. And Vol- 
taire also, in his Dictionary, with shrewd skill and sar- 
castic sharpness, wrote: "There is no sect in geometry, 
mathematics or experimental philosophy. When truth is 
evident it is impossible to divide people into parties and 
factions. Nobody disputes that it is broad day at noon." 
Both of these writers proceed on the assumption that 

284 



SECTS IN SCIENCE. 285 

moral questions should be dealt with as we deal with 
numbers, triangles, polygons and circles, and that the 
same kind of certainty is to be looked for in the one case 
as in the other. But this is unreasonable. There is a 
broad distinction in kind between these departments of 
inquiry, which necessarily affects their methods and their 
conclusions. Truth in the domain of morals and religion 
is more open to debate than in the physical; for it relates 
to profounder and more complicated issues; is, in the na- 
ture of things, more difficult of proof, and comes into 
collision with deeper prejudices and intenser antagonisms. 
These differences being possible in the realm of spiritual 
inquiry, they easily account for parties in the Christian 
church without involving the implication of Voltaire that 
they are contending about that which is radically false. 

May it not also be said in answer to this objection that 
the alleged harmony of experimental philosophers is more 
fanciful than real? There are sects in science as in re- 
ligion, and they are just as uncompromising and as un- 
charitable, and probably more so. Not to weary you with 
illustrations of this statement, permit me to allude to one 
which was related to me recently in the city of Berlin. 
Huxley and Owen quarreled over the brain of the chim- 
panzee. One of these eminent scientists contended that 
the upper lobe extended over the lower, and the other 
denied it. Friendship was broken in consequence of this 
disagreement, and the rivals would not acknowledge each 
other courteously. The war between them was stern and 
pronounced, and even the discovery that both were correct 
did not end hostilities. Although it was shown that what 
one gentleman affirmed was true of the male chimpanzee, 
but not of the female, and that what was affirmed by the 
other was true of the female but not of the male, concord 
would not return. They both continued to look askance 



286 ISMS OLD AI^D NEW. 

and defiantly at each other, like the famous servants of 
the implacable and irreconcilable Capulets and Montagues: 

" Do you bite your thumb at me, sir ? " 

"I bite my thumb." 

And in the same spirit of sectarianism Professor Hux- 
ley criticises M. Comte: "In so far as my study of what 
specially characterizes the Positive Philosophy has led me, 
I find therein little or nothing of any scientific value, and 
a great deal which is thoroughly antagonistic to the very 
essence of science as anything in Ultramontane Catholi- 
cism. In fact, M. Comte's philosophy in practice might 
be compendiously described as Catholicism minus Chris- 
tianity." Ah! Could the dead philosopher revive again 
most likely he would answer this stinging rebuke with 
scathing sharpness, and entertain society with a new ver- 
sion of the ancient feud: 

" I serve as good a man as you." 

"No better?" 

" Yes, better, sir." 

Alarmed by the damaging inference drawn from their 
divisions, and half persuaded of its cogency, a large num- 
ber of disciples insist on the immediate union. of all de- 
nominations. In their fright they make some singular 
proposals, suggest the most astounding compromises, and 
remarkable theories; and may very properly be called the 
peace-at-any-price party. Some of them are willing that 
present differences of opinion and belief should continue, 
if by some happy device a solid front can only be present- 
ed to the world. What they seem to desire is that an end 
should be put to all discord, at least in appearance. 
Hence they have invented evangelical alliances, great and 
small ; union societies and union movements, big and 
little; all valuable and desirable in their place, but without 
as yet accomplishing anything very wonderful. Others of 
this class are so intensely interested in this cause that they 



CHURCH UKIOK. 287 

make the impression that conscientious scruples and moral 
convictions ought to yield to its superior claims; and that 
it would be better to narrow the circle of truth than con- 
sent to perpetuate the evils of separation. From the 
beginning of the Christian era there have always been 
worshipers at the altars of uniformity; who have regarded 
it as the easiest thing imaginable for all persons to square 
thought and conduct to the requirements of a single stand- 
ard. These ecclesiastical morphologists have not only 
demanded that conduct should be conformed to the same 
pattern, but that belief should be cast in the same mold. 
They never, however, have succeeded in actualizing their 
ideal. The decrees they fulminated, the persecutions they 
employed, and the anathemas they invoked, came short of 
their aim. Religious people would not think alike, would 
not act alike, would not fetter the free life in them; but 
persistently ran into all sorts of irregularity, singularity, 
and nonconformity. In our time this zeal in behalf of 
oneness has not abated; but recognizing the difficulty of 
controlling thought, in some quarters it now pleads for 
agreement in outward observances and ceremonies, what- 
ever may be the individual belief. However motley, mul- 
tifarious and heterogeneous faith may be, it is assumed that 
practical submission to the same forms would impart to 
the church that union which was contemplated by the 
Savior, and which for so many reasons is desirable. This 
is the present attitude of the Roman Catholic church and 
of the Church of England. A great variety of opinions 
are tolerated within their communions on condition that 
tlie ritual be faithfully maintained. But this spirit of 
compromise is looked upon as deplorable by a more radical 
class, who have not yet been convinced of the utter impos- 
sibility of actualizing the other half of the old strict con- 
formity theory. They do not understand how any person 
can arrive at different conclusions, in reading the New 



288 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

Testament, from their own. Diversity is inexplicable, ex- 
traordinary, monstrous. They are ready to ascribe it to 
eccentricity, aberration, or something worse; and, forget- 
ting that they themselves are not in entire accord with the 
theology of the past, they are ready, in the interests of 
union, to cut off from their fellowship the members who 
offend against what they regard as inspired truth. But 
however these parties may dissent as to means and meas- 
ures, they are all intent on the unification of the church in 
some fashion, more or less complete. This, in their judg- 
ment, is the supreme question of the hour, toward whose 
solution they are struggling along somewhat confusedly 
and blunderingly. 

I am convinced that whatever of error is involved in 
the views current on this subject is largely due to unac- 
quaintance and unfamiliarity with the real law of unity as 
it is revealed in nature and revelation, and to the failure 
to recognize the degree and kind of diversity that is not 
only compatible with it, but inseparable from it. 

If we look upon the sky we find it at times overcast 
with clouds, which assume the most varied and changing 
shapes. Now they drift like fleecy snow across the ex- 
panse of blue, then wander slowly up and down, like 
flocks of sheep, seeking pasturage among the stars, and 
shepherded by the gentle wind; or they are piled up on 
the horizon's extremest verge, dark with storm and heavy 
with tempests, resembling some huge citadel frowning on 
the peaceful vale; or they are spread out beneath the 
glory of the setting sun, from whose glittering planes 
majestic forms arise, picturing to the eye the beauty and 
harmony of the heavenly city, with its streets of gold, its 
gates of pearl, and its walls of precious stones. Their 
transitory and fleeting shapes, that now appeal to fear and 
then to fancy, are but sculpturesque, though unsculptured, 
figures of that one element that falls in the rain, gleams 



THE UN"ITY OF NATURE. 289 

in the dew, and that sparkles in the ice-particle. Here we 
meet with unity in diversity, a diversity that magnifies the 
unity. Schiller, describing natural scenery, writes: 

" Flowers of all hue are struggling into glow 
Along the blooming fields ; yet their sweet strife 
Melts into one harmonious concord " ; 

and in his Pliilosophical Letters he adds: ''Millions of 
plants drink from the four elements of nature; a maga- 
zine of supplies is open for all; but they mix their sap in 
a thousand different ways, and return it in a thousand new 
forms." We cannot, surely, have failed to think of this 
ourselves, or to have overlooked the kindred but deeper 
fact that the endless variations of root and leaf in each 
particular plant are indispensable to the perfect fullness 
and harmony of the flower. They all spring from unity, 
and they tend to unity again. And what is true of earth's 
floral beauty is true of earth itself. Mountains and val- 
leys, deep, dark forests, wide, sweeping prairies, rocky 
wildernesses and grassy glens, that break the monotony 
of its surface, are all bound together in the fellowship of 
matter. Of a common nature, they effect, through their 
diversity, a common good. As the mutability of clouds 
is needful to shield the tender crops from heat, and to be- 
dew them with refreshing moisture, so the irregularities 
of the earth are inseparable from its habitableness. Were 
it not for these, human beings could not exist upon its 
bosom, and progress in arts and sciences would be impos- 
sible. Believe me, there is not a mountain range too 
many, nor too long or lofty, not a vale too wide or deep, 
not a superfluous stream or ocean, nor a single region 
whose essential character can be changed with entire im- 
punity. So nicely ordered, balanced, measured, are these 
diversities that on their preservation rests the welfare of 
the whole. Man, the tenant of this wondrous house, is 
19 



290 ISMS OLD AND FEW. 

himself the most notable illustration of this principle. 
How like, and yet unlike, are the teeming millions that 
make up the race. No two are identical in body or in 
soul. They are all similar, yet dissimilar; they are one- 
ness in manifoldness. They possess in common the same 
nature, faculties and organs, but in degree, quality and 
aptitude how endlessly diverse ! And who can doubt but 
that this very lack of uniformity has proven the most po- 
tent factor in the world's advancement. It has given us 
our specialists, our statesmen, poets, soldiers, inventors; it 
has exalted our civilization by multiplying its departments; 
it has lessened the evils of life by distributing its burdens ; 
it has unified races and nations by demonstrating their 
independence, and it has stimulated and elevated the indi- 
vidual by bringing him face to face with the competition 
of the many. 

"See how the iron powers of thoughtful skill 
Are shaped and quickened by the fire of strife." 

Scientists are now calling attention to the growing 
diversity that may be traced throughout the universe. 
The sidereal system, with its spiral and spherical nebulae, 
with its clusters of stars, ranging from two to several thou- 
sand in number, they claim has increased in heterogeneity 
during the long time spaces that have elapsed since the 
creation. The same fact is urged of the earth in its prog- 
ress from original chaos. Fossil remains are said to prove 
that ''the more heterogeneous organisms, and groups of 
organisms, have been evolved from the more homogene- 
ous." Also, in the history of the arts the law of diversity 
is recognized and pointed out by these writers. But per- 
haps the most striking illustration of the principle involved 
is furnished by what Grove and Spencer call the " Corre- 
lation of Physical Forces." It is now believed that heat, 
electricity, chemical force, and every other kind of force, 



SPIRITUAL CORRELATION". 291 

have reciprocal affection and dependence, and that any 
one of them may be convertible into any of the others. 
Thus, for instance, heat produces electricity under certain 
conditions, and electricity produces heat, and either of 
them or both may be the cause of motion. These ele- 
ments or energies, therefore, are but forms of some one 
supreme force, — differentiations, modifications, and trans- 
mutations of some ultimate subtle energy. That — what- 
ever it is — tends to diversity of manifestation and of 
operation, and thus falls in with what appears to be the 
method of universal progress. For it is to be observed 
that these changes from the simple to the complex, from 
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, result in greater 
definiteness and distinctness of structure and of organism, 
and in greater perfectness of form and function. Every- 
where the law of diversity is seen to be elaborating a more 
complete and glorious order of things; as Mr. Spencer 
says, "is the deepest knovv^able cause of those modifica- 
tions which constitute physiological development, as it is 
the deepest knowable cause of all other evolutions," and 
is not, therefore, to be lightly esteemed, deprecated or 
deplored. 

Is there not something analogous to this in the domain 
of the spiritual ? I believe that there is. As I read the 
New Testament I find that there is a sense in which all 
Christians are really one. Superficially and outwardly 
they may be separated, but essentially and spiritually they 
are united. This is our Savior's doctrine. He represents 
His disciples as partaking of the same life, as being mem- 
bers of the same kingdom, and as engaged in the same 
work. In the parables of the vine and the mustard seed 
they are set forth as being vitalized and sustained by the 
same life-current, and as bearing fruit from the same 
source. They are one flock, having one shepherd; and 
they are one family, having one Father. If our Lord 



292 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

prayed for their unification, we are not to conclude that 
He meant to teach that they are naturally and necessarily 
separated from each other like the sands of the sea; but 
that its degree might be intensified until they should come 
to share with each other and with Christ in that mysteri- 
ous fellowship which blends His personality with that of 
the Father. As there is growth in grace, so is there 
growth in union; and as the first is only possible when 
grace already exists, so the second is only attainable when 
the disciples are bound together in Christ by deep, spirit- 
ual ties. And just in proportion as it approaches the ideal 
will it be manifest to the world; not by some dull uni- 
formity, but by the fuller revelation of that which is its 
cause. All concede that its source is Christ; it is a union 
in Christ; and as it draws nearer to perfection the Christ- 
life will be more apparent. His spirit, His purity, the 
beauties of His character, will become more conspicuous 
in His followers, and will draw to them the attention and 
approval of the world. Without referring to the apostles 
for the confirmation of this view, we may conclude that it 
is worthy our support, and should be recognized as funda- 
mental to a just conception of Christian union. Whatever 
differences of doctrine or practice may seem to wall de- 
nominations from each other, they are fellow-disciples, 
brethren and sisters in the Lord, resting in a common 
Savior, rejoicing in a common hope. They may have fallen 
into errors of faith, they may have drifted into errors of 
government, they may have adopted singular ceremonials, 
and even more singular customs, but if they breathe the 
spirit of Christ in their words and deeds they are equally 
His, and equally members of His body. This is being 
realized to-day, perhaps more distinctly than in the past, 
and hence, though the number of sects may not have dimin- 
ished, sectarianism has perceptibly declined. 

This unity in the Savior does not prevent diversity, 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 293 

and the diversity is not destructive of the unity. This 
seems to be clearly taught in the sacred writings. Such 
figures as the vine and mustard-tree, which are employed 
to illustrate it, imply variety; for we know that no two 
leaves are perfectly alike. Marked differences separate 
the apostles, not only in character but in their way of 
looking at the truth. While their teachings are essen- 
tially the same, they are distinguishable by a Jewish or 
a philosophical cast of thought. In the twelfth chap- 
ter of second Corinthians we have presented an elabo- 
rate account of the diversities that were found in the 
primitive church. Gifts, administrations or governments, 
operations and methods, were not alike. They were dis- 
similar. Some members had the word of wisdom, others 
the word of knowledge, others divers kinds of tongues, 
and others yet the interpretation of tongues. But over 
all and through them all wrought the self-same Spirit. 
Now, admitting that many of these particular distinctions 
were peculiar to the apostolic age, and conceding that in 
Revelation we have an outline of everything to be be- 
lieved or done to secure even the most complete outward 
agreement among disciples, are we not taught by this 
chapter that diversities are not destructive of essential 
unity; that their continuance in some form is always not 
only possible but probable, and that as they were in the 
Corinthian church overruled for good, so in all after-times 
they would be made subservient to the well-being of 
Christ's kingdom ? This, at least, is the inference I draw 
from the chapter. 

As the genius and other mental and spiritual qualities 
of the apostles colored their presentation of truth, it is not 
unnatural to suppose that similar qualities would influence 
those who interpret it, in subsequent periods. And as 
disciples were gifted by the Spirit, doubtless in harmony 
with their natural endowments, to fulfill certain offices and 



294 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

ministries, and as there was evidently a disposition to 
magnify their special work at the expense of that which 
was being wrought by their brethren, how reasonable to 
expect that in the future similar preferences would be 
shown, and that out of them denominations would even 
develop. This is just what has taken place. Different 
interpretations, various views of doctrine or of church 
government, combined with predilections for this or that 
mode of doing Christian work, have resulted in the forma- 
tion of religious bodies. As the vital principle in nature 
takes to itself varifed but appropriate forms, and as the 
primary force asserts itself as magnetism, heat or electri- 
city, so the spirit of grace, which permeates the entire 
company of the saved, being modified by their personality, 
reveals itself in various creeds and various organizations. 
Unity is no more sacrificed in the one case than in the 
other; and more than this, as we have seen that diversity 
in the physical ministers to the highest good of the uni- 
verse, to its progress as well as to its stability, we are 
warranted in believing that diversity in the spiritual pro- 
motes its development, its advancement and its triumph. 

We generally assume, when the subject is under con- 
sideration, that Christianity would have accomplished more 
for the world than it has if it had remained a stranger to 
disruptions and discords. This is the prevailing opinion. 
It is repeated without any sort of misgiving on all occa- 
sions where the limited triumphs of the Cross form the 
theme of conversation or discussion. But it is very ques- 
tionable whether, in the sense usually intended, the posi- 
tion is sound and trustworthy. Of course there must be 
some explanation of the failure to fulfill the fair promise 
which the new religion gave at the beginning of its his- 
tory, and for want of a better it is not unnatural that it 
should be sought in the rise and perpetuity of variances 
and factions. Undoubtedly little can ever be effected in 



VALUE OF DIVERSITY. 295 

the spirit of sectarianism, or alienation; and so far as the 
inner and vital union between God's people has come short 
of the beautiful ideal, every agency for good has been 
weakened and impeded. This ma}^ be conceded, and yet 
what we mean by denominationalism not be responsible 
for the comparatively unsuccessful endeavors of the church. 
Whether she would have succeeded better had uniformity 
distinguished her is, in my judgment, open to debate; and 
whether she would have exerted a greater power if mo- 
notony had been the rule is not altogether clear and cer- 
tain. I think as much can be said on one side as the 
other, and at least enough to occasion hesitancy in sub- 
scribing unreservedly to the common view. A Moslem 
proverb has it, " The leaves of God's book are the religious 
persuasions"; and I am not convinced that the variety of 
readings, practically as unimportant as the multiplied dif- 
ferences between the several versions of the Scriptures, 
have proved in the least detrimental to the establishment 
and progress of Christianity. Standing by the Falls of 
Niagara, the spectator must be impressed with the fact 
that the rapid sweep and concentrated solidity of the 
waters do not prevent them from breaking into eddies and 
currents and separate streams. Rolling impetuously on- 
ward they are divided by rocky beds rising in their course, 
by inequalities in the channel, and by huge boulders that 
seem to have been placed in their path to torment them 
and to excite their wrath. And yet these impediments, 
around which they swirl and at which they growl with 
foamy lips, only intensify their strength and add momen- 
tum to their fury, so that when they leap restrainless from 
the giddy height they carry everything before them, and 
slowly, but surely, grind the rocks on which they beat to 
powder. Eugene Thayer tells us that in listening to the 
mighty voice of these floods he detected in its awful roar 
the various tones of a great organ and the sweet harmony 



296 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

of mysterious sounds. Souls in whom the richness of 
melody dwells not may never recognize in the beat of the 
waters anything like music, only crash and discord and the 
reverberations of stridulous monotone, but music dwells 
there nevertheless. And music dwells in Christianity. 
Beneath the chatter, clatter and prattle, and lying deep 
below the noisy loquaciousness of wrangling sects, the 
psalmody of redeeming love may be heard by those who 
have "ears to hear," and the different parts of the song 
of grace, in divinest unison blending, making glad the city 
of our God. on earth, as it shall at last make glad the new- 
Jerusalem in heaven. As it moves forward with outward 
clash and discord, but with inner harmonies, like Niagara, 
our religion, divided into many streams and by dissensions 
rent, has still been one, and has seemed to gather power 
and velocity from its schisms, so that it has swept before 
it hoary superstitions and given the assurance that every 
form of evil on which it falls shall at last be ground to 
powder. 

Denominational distinctions have not been without ad- 
vantages to the cause of truth. This has been noted by 
the poet Schiller. In one of his letters he saysi "All tor- 
tuous deviations of the wandering reason at length strike 
into the straight road of everlasting truth; all diverging 
arms and currents ultimately meet in the main stream." 
Experience has abundantly verified this position. Theo- 
logical dissent necessitates and facilitates investigation; it 
sets independent seekers to work, and insures an increase 
of light on the question in dispute. The advocate on 
either side, zealous in behalf of his view, abundant in la- 
bors to demonstrate its correctness, and unsparing in his 
criticism of opposing views, prepares the way for an en- 
lightened judgment. By this process error is eliminated, 
and truth is not only discovered, but is vindicated as well. 
This result has been brought about by denominational an- 



DIVERSITY IN" CHUECHES. 297 

tagonisms. Watching each other, jealous of each other, 
anxious to justify their own existence, they have un- 
weariedly labored and brought together such a mass of in- 
formation that it is now comparatively easy to decide what 
was really taught by Christ and His apostles. Mutually 
they have contributed to make clear the real doctrines 
of the Scriptures, and in so doing their divergences have 
proven eminently advantageous. And it is to be further 
observed that they have actually tended to bring the war- 
ring churches closer together, as it were, in spite of them- 
selves. The search has shown that they are not as wide 
apart as they supposed, that they are more in harmony 
than they suspected, and that what they had once re- 
garded as fatally erroneous is, after all, not irreconcilable 
with truth. They have also demonstrated that God's 
Word has nothing to fear from investigation; that the 
path of safety lies in the utmost freedom of thought and 
of inquiry; and that, while at times this liberty may lead 
to mistakes, it must at last end in some fresh and some 
more definite conception of the teachings of Revelation. 

Diversity has also ministered to Christian efficiency. 
Were the members of a single church alike, how narrowed 
would its sphere of usefulness become. If they were all 
gifted with executive abilities, and were destitute of devo- 
tional qualities, how little they would accomplish apart 
from governing. If they were enriched in knowledge, 
but poor in sympathy and charity, how pedantic and un- 
interesting they would be. If zeal was not checked by 
wisdom, and activity by meditation, into what extremes 
they would run. In every church there is needed faith, 
the gifts of healing, of prophecy, and of tongues. Not 
one alone, but all. "If the whole body were an eye, 
where were the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, 
where were the smelling ? " And if the whole were talk- 
ing, — as is frequently the case, — where were the doing? 



298 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

The fact that we meet with these diversities is one cause 
of the success which attends the labors of Christ's people. 
The aggressiveness of one rebukes the sluggishness of 
others; enthusiasm startles apathy, earnestness rouses in- 
difference; while, on the other hand, conservatism restrains 
radicalism, gentleness tempers impetuosity, and common 
sense curbs the impatience of fiery zeal. And in a similar 
way the various denominations act and react upon each 
other. Their existence is the occasion for generous rival- 
ries and noble emulations. If one is more enterprising 
than the rest, its example cannot be lost; if it is more 
liberal and spiritual, others will feel the power of its influ- 
ence. I confess, unless Christian human nature were to 
undergo a radical change, I should look with grave solici- 
tude on the dawning of undenominationalism. AVere we 
all one body we should lose the tremendous stimulation 
that comes from, the present arrangement, and I fear that 
our uniformity would become the uniformity of death and 
the tomb. Let us not then decry or undervalue the good 
that accrues to the cause of Christ from what many con- 
sider an unmitigated evil. 

Nor should we hide from ourselves the fact -that these 
diversities seem to facilitate the work of the churches 
in drawing men to the Savior. There are marked 
varieties on the outside that demand those on the inside. 
Many persons can be influenced by Methodism who 
would never be reached by Presbyterianism, and there 
are some who will cheerfully attend to preaching from 
an undenominational pulpit who would refuse to hear 
the message from a denominational one. A supremely 
intellectual ministry, a ministry of light, proves effective 
in some cases, while in others a spiritually magnetic or 
electrical ministry is alone successful, and yet in others a 
correlation of these forces is indispensable. They all have 
their value, and the world as at present constituted would 



THE LOVIN^G MOITIv. 299 

be infinitely poorer, and immeasurably more helpless, for 
the destruction of any one of them. 

From these thoughts you will infer that I do not attach 
much importance to uniformity. Certainly I am not dis- 
posed to idolize it. I am not clear that it is at all desira- 
ble, and I am sure that it would not be at the cost of 
mental liberty. As I view the case, the last thing to be 
attempted is an artificial and constrained union of church- 
es. Instead of talking a great deal about it, and pro- 
posing impossible schemes for its realization, we had bet- 
ter simply study to be right in faith and practice, and 
leave to God and to His providence the ultimate solution 
of the problem. He knows what is best for His jDeople 
and the world, and He will doubtless, in His own way and 
time, bring about whatever of structural union is neces- 
sary for the final triumph of His kingdom. In the mean- 
while let the heart be kept clear of bitterness and discord, 
and let the hand place no stumbling-block in a brother's 
way because his creed in some of its articles is different. 
Let good feeling and true fellowship be cultivated, and we 
shall then not be unprepared and unfitted to cooperate 
with God, who is, I am persuaded, working out by these 
diversities a grander and sublimer union in the spiritual 
than He has already effected, and by similar processes, in 
the physical. 

Somewhere I have read of two monks who had never 
quarreled or disagreed, but had lived for years in sweetest 
amity and peace. At last one suggested that they should 
have a falling out after the pattern of the world. But the 
other replied that he knew not how to quarrel, and that 
he did not understand how to perform his part. "Well," 
said the first monk, "we will put this brick between us, 
and you shall say, ^It is mine,' and I will say, 'It is mine,' 
and so we will gradually grow heated contending." With 
smiling faces the simple-hearted brethren prepared to 



300 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

enter the arena of debate. "It is mine," said the first, 
sternly; "It is mine," said the second, falteringly; "Yea, 
again I declare it is mine," responded the first, solemnly; 
^^Tlien take it^'^ lovingly answered the second. Brethren, 
I do not say that this spirit is always possible; but some- 
thing kindred to it is what God expects. It is not for 
Christian denominations to wrangle and contend, each 
madly alive to its own little interests, and careless of the 
interests of the others. "Mine and thine" should lose 
their significance with them, and they should be ready 
with loving accord to yield to each other, and to bear each 
other's burdens. We shall never recognize what is grand 
and good in our neighbors, and we shall be blind to their 
claims on our fellowship, if we fail to cultivate this spirit 
of gentle amity. Ruskin shows very eloquently the sad 
effects of anarchy and competition in a piece of common 
mud. The elements which compose it "are at helpless 
war with each other^ and destroy reciprocally each other's 
nature and power; competing and fighting for place at 
every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and clay 
squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and 
defiling the whole." Such, also, is the dreary outcome of 
sectarian jealousies, rivalries and contentions. They pre- 
sent the members of the warring, fermenting sects in the 
most unlovely of lights; they are offensive to each other, 
and their touch is regarded as somewhat contaminating. 
Ruskin proceeds to describe the glorious results that 
would follow if his piece of humble mud were left for suf- 
ficient time in perfect rest. Beginning with the clay in 
the compound, he traces its progress to the consistency of 
finest porcelain, and then upward until it becomes clear, 
white and hard, and gathering to its heart "the loveliest 
rays only," it is known to us as a sapphire. He then takes 
the sand, and assuming a "similar permission of quiet," 
he shows how it attains "the power of reflecting, not 



GRACES OF THE SPIRIT. 301 

merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple and red 
rays, in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen 
through any hard material whatsoever. We call it then 
an opal." Next the soot is taken in hand, and its efforts 
to become a diamond vividly depicted; for even this 
worthless element can "exchange its blackness for the 
power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once." 
"Last of all, the water purifies, or unites itself; contented 
enough if it only reach the form of a dewdrop; but if we 
insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it 
crystallizes into the shape of a star." And in like man- 
ner, if the various sects will only fully cease from criti- 
cism, sarcasm, and railings at each other's expense, and 
will strangle their dull-eyed bigotry and smother their 
stupid self-esteem, and if they will seek peace and follow 
"brotherly love," they will furnish the condition needed 
for each to develop its peculiar "fruit of the Spirit," and 
its individual perfections. Then it will be seen that there 
is "faith" in the Catholic, to remind us of the precious 
and highly painted porcelain; "gentleness" in the Epis- 
copal, to remind us of the rare and softly gleaming sap- 
phire; "knowledge" in Presbyterians, and "diligence" in 
Methodists, to remind us of the beautiful and many-hued 
opal; "charity" in the Unitarian, to remind us of the 
pure and lustrous diamond; and " longsuffering " in the 
Baptist, to remind us of the fresh and pearly water, sym- 
bol of bitter but wholesome tears of sorrow, which hope 
transforms into the never-fading stars of "joy." The 
Master of the treasure-house will not despise any of these 
jewels, but will find a place for each one in His radiant 
crown; and if so, we should remove every obstacle from 
the way of their flashing from His footstool; and the more 
we realize their worthiness to shine, the more fully will we 
blend our rays together, and when this consummation shall 
be reached, then will the greatest obstacle be removed 



302 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

from the way of final unification; and then, though diver- 
sities may still exist in doctrine and practice, the world 
will no longer be able to say with scornful lips: " See how 
these Christians love each other." 

It would be well for the unconverted, before they 
articulate this sneer, to consider how much of the present 
diversity is permitted in condescension to their own weak- 
ness and waywardness. The manifoldness of sin, as I have 
already intimated, cries out for manifoldness in religion, 
and the differences that reign in the natural most likely 
can only be met by differences in the supernatural. If 
God allows us to remain Methodist, Baptist or Episcopa- 
lian, it may be on your account, that you may be without 
excuse; that every type of man may be confronted with a 
corresponding type of doctrine and of method. Instead 
of these varieties lessening your responsibility, they 
rather heighten it, and instead of extenuating your indif- 
ference, they only condemn it. Surely somewhere you 
can find a faith and a church to suit you; surely there are 
means adapted to your state, and ministries fitted to your 
peculiar temperament. Think of this, remember this, and 
instead of jeering at what is tolerated for your, good, ear- 
nestly seek those aids which a merciful God will bless to 
your soul's salvation. 

" Thro' all life's thousand-fold entangled maze, 
One Godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys, — 
Thro' countless means one solemn end, foreshown, 
The labyrinth closes at a single throne." 



MAMMOlSriSM. 



"Ye cannot serve God and mammon." — Matthew m^ 24. 

''Gold! gold! gold! gold! 
Bright and yellow, hard and cold, 
Molten, graven, hammered and rolled ; 
Heavy to get, and light to hold ; 
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold; 
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled : 
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old 
To the very verge of the church-yard mold ; 
Price of many a crime untold, — 
Gold! gold! gold! gold!" Hood. 

THERE is a picture by Wertz in an art collection at 
Brussels which must profoundly impress the thought- 
ful student of our times. It represents one of those un- 
fortunate French women who played so prominent a part 
in the tragedy of the Paris Commune, with her back to a 
wall and her hands tied before her, flashing scorn and 
contempt from eyes glistening beneath thick shadows of 
raven hair partly fallen over the face, and a squad of Ver- 
sailles soldiers, who are mechanically preparing for her 
summary execution. The story is easily understood, and 
hardly needs an interpreter. Sympathizing with the ene- 
mies of Thiers' new republic, the poor creature has been 
taken in the act of firing some public building, or in fill- 
ing her dead husband's place at the barricades, and must 
meet the consequences at the mouth of a score of muskets. 
There she stands, life-like, on the canvas, pale but defiant, 
and there the uniformed assassins with their guns leveled 
at her defenseless breast. So painfully realistic is the 



304 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

composition that the beholder expects to hear the sharp 
word of command from the officer, the swift-answering 
report of the death-dealing weapons, the half-suppressed 
cry of the wretched prisoner, and to see the flashing fire, 
the blinding smoke, and then the unsightly heap of bleed- 
ing clay. Instinctively he holds his breath, shuts his eyes, 
and turns away. 

But he cannot exclude from his mind the terrible scene, 
or escape the somber reflections to which it gives rise. 
These will continue to haunt him for some time, and may 
not be altogether unprofitable. Realizing that the picture 
represents a passage in the history of this enlightened 
century, he will most likely regard it as illustrating to 
some degree its spirit. Possibly he will find himself pro- 
pounding curious questions and arriving at very unsatis- 
factory conclusions. Here, in a civilized nation, — perhaps 
the most highly civilized in the world, — the people aban- 
don themselves to wholesale butchering, and with the 
torch of the vandal destroy their grandest edifices and 
slaughter their prisoners and hostages like beasts. Refine- 
ment, education, the finer feelings, indeed everything that 
makes them Frenchmen, are powerless to restrain their 
passions when excited by the frenzy of revolution. Natu- 
rally the query arises. Were these men and women, who act 
like human devils, ever really civilized? Were they ever in 
advance of the furious Huns ? and wherein do they really 
differ from their savage ancestry ? Outwardly, in dress, 
in houses, in pursuits, and customs, they are manifestly far 
removed from their uncouth sires, but in heart the dis- 
tance between them does not seem very marked. Of Alaric 
it is written that, when he sat down with his army before 
the gates of Rome, he promised to leave its citizens their 
lives, if nothing else. M. Thiers was not as humane as 
Alaric; he made no promise, or, if he did, he certainly 
failed to keep it. In what particular, then, was Thiers 



MODERN CIVILIZATI02S". 305 

more fully civilized than Alaric? The Cimbrian women 
acted as priestesses in a barbarous age, and delighted to 
cut the throat of prisoners taken in war, draining the 
blood of their victims into brass vessels and offering it to 
their deities. But in what particular were these women 
worse than their Parisian sisters ? Was life less sacred to 
the one class than to the other? or were the dignity and 
gentleness of their sex properly appreciated and exhibited 
by either? 

Let us not, however, suppose that such questions are 
suggested exclusively by the atrocities of the Commune 
and its antagonists, for in every nation, and equally in our 
own, there are many things which prompt them. Much is 
being written and said in praise of our era. Poets, orators 
and editors never grow weary extolling its achievements 
and triumphs, its material and social advancement, and 
its educational and philanthropical enterprises. Windy 
speeches, double-leaded editorials, eagle-soaring verses, 
set forth with doubtful modesty the superiority of this 
century over its less fortunate predecessors. There never 
was such a century before, — possibly never will be again, 
— never such enlightenment enjoyed, such liberty at- 
tained, such prosperity realized, and such elevation 
achieved. And yet, without controverting these extrava- 
gant representations sharply, there are uneasy suspicions 
abroad that modern progress is not just what it ought to 
be. While we travel faster, fly higher, plow deeper, see 
clearer, grow richer, communicate easier, and in general 
thrive more than our forefathers, nevertheless there is a 
skeleton in our social structure having the huge propor- 
tions of Leviathan. Civilization unquestionably excels in . 
various repects, and, perhaps, as a whole, every former 
effort in the same direction, and yet it seems far from 
deserving the unqualified encomiums which are lavished 
on it so unstintedly. I have no desire to detract from it. 
20 



306 ISMS OLD AI5D NEW. 

but at the same time praise should not outstrip merit or 
congratulations overstep the boundary of justice. Words- 
worth starts a very serious and important doubt in the fol- 
lowing expressive lines: 

" Man now presides 
In power where once lie trembled in his weakness; 
Science advances with gigantic strides, 
But are we aught enriched in love and meekness ? 
Aught dost thou see, bright star ! of pure and wise 
More than in humbler times graced human story ; 
That makes our hearts more apt to sympathize 
With heaven, our souls more fit for future glory, 
When earth shall vanish from our closing eyes. 
And we lie down in our last dormitory? " 

That is, in other words, are we as highly civilized as we 
think we are ? Has morality kept pace with material prog- 
ress ? Has the elevation of humanity been proportionate 
to the development of physical resources? Has the race, 
under the most favorable circumstances, been entirely 
purged of its old barbarities and savage tendencies? Are 
we really what we seem, or are we at best but the prophe- 
cy and promise of what we ought to be and shall be. 

I am afraid these questions are not susceptible to the 
answer our vanity would dictate. But if there is truth in 
the saying of Edmund Burke, that "adulation is not of 
more service to people than to kings," then it is much 
wiser to look at the facts as they are, however humiliating, 
than to be deceived by fancies. These facts point to the 
mortifying conclusion that the history of the Paris Com- 
mune is a too faithful portraiture of the age in which we 
live; an outbreak of its spirit, a revelation of its inner- 
most heart. As we meditate on its terrible record, its in- 
sane cruelty, and the bloodshed of which it was the occa- 
sion, and remember the pretensions of the French capital, 
we cannot avoid the apprehension that under similar cir- 
cumstances the horrors of its brief career might be repeat- 



REFIKED CAN'NIBALISM. 307 

ed among other peoples, if they are not being enacted in 
ways not less striking and appalling, though not one whit 
less shocking, every day and in almost every city. 

That this is the case, — that to an alarming extent op- 
pression overrides justice, and wrong overreaches right, 
that our wonderful civilization is yet cursed by the cruel 
and degraded spirit of ancient savagery, — a brief induc- 
tion of facts I think will fully establish. 

It seems to be proven by what remains among us of 
the man-eating propensities which have disgraced many 
tribes and nations. Cannibalism does not flourish, of 
course, in its old form, but it would be premature to affirm 
that the sanguinary Mexican has no successor, and the 
ferocious Fijian no imitator. Some wild races have de- 
voured their enemies, that they might in this way appro- 
priate to themselves the special qualities for which they 
were distinguished. Thus, for example, — according to 
Herbert Spencer, whose Synthetic Philosophy has fur- 
nished me much lively information regarding the habi- 
tudes of primitive races, — the Dakota used to eat the 
heart of a fallen antagonist to increase his own courage, 
and a New Zealander would swallow the eyes of a slain foe 
that he might see the farther. These interesting practices 
are not altogether unknown to this civilized age of ours. 
Not as grossly, it is true, but quite as really, men prey 
upon each other, and strive to make good their deficien- 
cies at each other's expense. When a cunning manipulator 
of stocks, by "ways that are dark and tricks that are not 
vain," appropriates to himself the money of his less wily 
and astute fellow-citizens, he is assuredly following in the 
footsteps of the Dakota and New Zealander. They simply 
rob their victims of eyes and heart, but the conscienceless 
speculator plunders even his friends, for his own advan- 
tage, of that which is sight to their age and as strength 
to their helplessness. Moreover, large classes of work- 



308 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

people suffer a silent martyrdom, and are annually sacri- 
ficed by the thousands to sustain useless pomp and idle 
extravagance. 

" Beneath the sun 

The many still must labor for the one : 

'Tis nature's doom." 

So says the poet; but I am inclined to the opinion that 
man has more to do with this arrangement than nature. 
Not satisfied with his own share of this world and a trifle 
over, he clutches at the share of others. Availing himself 
of the necessities which poverty, disease and failures have 
created, he burdens his dependents with excessive toil, 
prates pathetically about political economy, and piously of 
"nature," too, and continues to underpay them. Steadily 
they sink into more abject pauperism, until they shiver in 
the ghost of a garment and for shelter are forced to herd 
together, where decency, much less dignity, is hardly pos- 
sible. Are not such unhappy creatures devoured by our 
civilized cannibals? 

Take as an illustration of the wrongs of labor some 
facts gleaned from an intelligent article in The Examiner 
and Chronicle, published in New York, concerning the 
working girls of that city. Doubtless they can be dupli- 
cated in every other great center of population. These girls 
are represented as earning the "munificent sum of thirty- 
five cents" for making the best and heaviest of overcoats ; 
twenty-eight cents for handsome spring overcoats; six to 
ten cents a pair for pants; seventy-five cents a dozen for 
calico wrappers, and about a dollar and a half for complete 
suits for ladies. " Cash girls get from seventy-five cents to 
a dollar and a half per week. ' Must come neatly dressed ' 
is in the advertisement of 'cash girls wanted.' " Then, in 
addition to such meager wages, it seems they are outra- , 
geously cheated. "They have to contribute to presents for 
the foreman and bookkeepers." "A little girl in a tobacco 



WKONGS OF WORKIN^G WOMEN. 309 

factory who earns a dollar and a half per week had fifty 
cents deducted to buy the ^boss' a present." "The men 
were invited to give; the girls were openly robbed." Well 
does the writer ask, "When a girl earns three dollars and 
a half in six days, and pays three dollars for board and 
lodging, thirty cents of it for car fares, does her own 
washing at night, seldom irons at all, how long before she 
must be looking for clothing? Where can she find it?" 
Is it not true that their employers feed upon their skill 
and strength, grow fat and haughty on their suffering toil, 
and merry on their misery, yea, and vampire-like, greedily 
suck their life's blood to renew their own vigor, and to 
minister to their own social importance ? And possibly 
when their elastic conscience occasionally bids them pause, 
some gentle poet sings in their ear the deceitful strain 
" 'Tis nature's doom." Deceitful I call it, because nature 
has never ordained that a few men should grow immeasur- 
ably rich at the expense of suffering millions; or that the 
least among them should be deprived of all that makes life 
desirable for the benefit of the already affluent. She is too 
kind a mother to countenance such unjust discrimination. 
The decree attributed to her is a fiction, a forgery, not a 
verity. She ordains equality, not inequality; judgment, 
not oppression; righteousness, not a cry. 

Wild, lawless races are generally reported indifferent 
to the value of human life. With the Bhils assassination 
is a pastime; with the Fans cruelty is a delight; while the 
Bushmen are brutal in their ferocity, and the Fijians ma- 
lignant in their revenge. Among some tribes the least 
breach of savage etiquette is visited with instant death, 
and among others the aged and sick are helped out of the 
world by appropriate tortures. This indifference, however, 
is not confined to the swamp and the jungle; it manifests 
itself in other quarters, in the centers of culture and re- 
finement. Witness the great armies of Europe, the im- 



310 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

mense fighting-machines organized to desttoy those to 
whom they bear no enmity, with whom they have no quar- 
rel, and in whose " violent taking off " they have not the 
least personal interest. Or, witness the daily chronicle of 
murders committed by drunken ruffians in saloons, or by 
idle scoundrels on the highway or by the fireside. Mur- 
ders by disreputable loungers in defense of an imaginary 
quality called "honor," generally not worth the powder 
exploded on its behalf; wife-murders, child-murders, mur- 
ders for money, murders for revenge, murders for licen- 
tiousness, and murders in sheer recklessness, make up the 
frightful catalogue which blackens the pages of our news- 
papers, and on which we every morning breakfast "full of 
horrors." And yet so little is life prized among us that 
the reeking stews and drinking dens which are responsible 
for most of these barbarities are not only tolerated, but 
are allowed with impunity to violate the law. Aye, and 
so lightly does the community seem to regard their crimes 
against life that their shambles are not even closed on the 
Sabbath; and so highly are the efforts of boozy ruffians 
to diminish population esteemed that they are actually 
made the fountain of political honor and preferment.* The 
rum-shop governs the primary meetings, and the primaries 
the elections, so that the still of moral death becomes the 
spring of political life to our successful parties. 

Not satisfied v«^ith destroying the body, our civilization 
is ingeniously contrived to slaughter the moral qualities of 
manhood, such as honesty, industry, frugality, and faith- 
fulness. Material interests are more highly prized than the 
spiritual. Supremacy in commerce, political sovereignty, 
and social aggrandizement, are the idols of the hour, and 
to their welfare everything else is subordinated. The in- 
nocence of childhood, the gentle graces of maidenhood, 
the sterner virtues of manhood, are all counted of second- 
ary importance, and are deliberately imperiled or sacri- 



IKPERIOR MANHOOD. 311 

ficed at the shrine of what we are pleased to term " mod- 
ern progress." Consequently "wealth accumulates, but 
men decay." Carlyle sums up the situation when, con- 
cerning the children of toil, he writes: ''It is to live miser- 
able, we know not why; to work sore and yet gain noth- 
ing; to be heartworn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in 
with a cold, universal laizzez-faire; it is to die slowly all our 
life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, infinite injustice, as 
in the accursed belly of Phalaris' bull ! This is, and re- 
mains forever, intolerable to all men whom God has made." 
If this is a fair description, we can readily understand how 
such a state of things must undermine the moral life. To 
be deprived of hope, to subsist from hand to mouth, to be 
sunless, restless, joyless, is in the large majority of cases 
to be careless of manhood and callous to its loss. Much 
is being said of over-population. Europe ships as many 
thousands as possible to these hospitable shores, and even 
here at times we feel uncomfortably crowded. "There 
must be something wrong," writes Carlyle; "a full-formed 
man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world 
could afford him a round sum w^ould he simply engage to 
go and hang himself." There is indeed something wrong. 
It means that civilization has so blundered during the past 
fifty years in organizing its industries and in developing 
its material resources that it has cursed the earth with an 
inferior manhood, which now cannot care for itself, and 
which cannot be gotten rid of at pleasure. 

Savages are not tenderly solicitous for the w^elfare of 
their offspring. Their children are pretty much left to 
grow up as they please. According to facts collated from 
various sources by Herbert Spencer, the Fuegians, though 
manifesting some paternal fondness, sell their little ones 
to the Patagonians for slaves; and New Guinea people 
cheerfully barter theirs for articles of merchandise. While 
all this confessedly is very inhuman, and has no exact 



312 ISMS OLD AKD N^EW. 

parallel in decent communities, it is questionable whether 
something similar is not discernible in the neglect, and 
worse than neglect, in which multiplied children of civili- 
zation are reared. Many of them are not only deprived 
of home influence, but the community being indifferent 
to their future, they grow up on the streets uninstructed 
in right and wrong, immoral, vicious, precocious in sin and 
ready for evil. Every man's hand seems to be against 
them. The Romans once gathered the children of the 
Goths into cities and there massacred them; and society, 
by its cruel neglect of children, whose parents may be 
stigmatized as modern Goths, is justly chargeable with 
the extinction of their moral life. What a revelation 
on this subject is furnished by the recent reports of 
Bridewell and of the Cook County Sunday School Con- 
vention. According to the latter, 85,G94 children in Chi- 
cago, out of a population, between the ages of 6 and 21, of 
135,694, do not attend any jDlace of religious instruction, 
and in one district of about 20,000 people not 10 per cent 
attend church or Sunday-school; and according to the 
former, during the last twelve months 6,755 persons were 
committed, of whom 1,454 were 21 years old and under, 
including children of 7 years, 8 years, 9 and 10 years of 
age. Picture to yourselves these infants immured with 
hardened criminals in close cells, — for as the prison ac- 
commodations were not adequate they had to be crowded 
together; — picture also solemn judges committing two 
seven-year-old villains to the safety of stone walls, and 
then picture your own selves, sitting meekly worshiping in 
silks and satins, and then ask yourselves the profoundly 
interesting question. How much better are we than the 
Fuegians? They sell their children to the Patagonians; 
we sell those of our worthless neighbor to the devil. Be- 
fore God, of the two, of the civilized and uncivilized, are 
they or we the least culpable ? Better answer the ques- 



MASTERS. 313 

tion at once, for if we do not we shall not be prompt to 
mend our ways, and if we do not mend our ways in this 
and in other matters to which attention has already been 
directed, we sliall speedily be confronted by social con- 
vulsions and earthquakes, whose violence will cover our 
foolish boasting with contempt and scorn. 

The more I reflect on the present state of society the 
more fully am I convinced that the evils of which T have 
complained are to be traced to that particular sin wliich is 
condemned by Jesus in the text — *' Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon." 

In warning the people against evils into which they 
were liable to fall he admonishes them not to lay up treas- 
ures on earth, but in heaven, as their heart would cer- 
tainly be with their treasures, and they ought to desire 
that to be in the holiest and safest place. This naturally 
leads him to the question of divided allegiance. Can 
a man have two masters? Can two beings or things 
be equally supreme in the affections and the life? If 
we are devoted to Republicanism, can we be equally de- 
voted to Royalty, and if we are zealously attached 
to the Protestant idea, can we at the same time be 
enthusiastically enlisted in behalf of the Catholic? Evi- 
dently not; for if our allegiance is divided between two, 
neither one nor the other is really lord, and the sov- 
ereignty of one always and necessarily implies the sub- 
ordination of the other. There can be but one master. 
Various interests may claim and probably should receive 
attention, but they must inevitably pay tribute to the 
ruling ideal. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." 
Either, but not both. If the Almighty is chosen to be 
your king, then your aims and endeavors must be regu- 
lated in harmony with His supreme will, and your rela- 
tions to money and business must be determined by His 
law. He does not condemn, but rather encourao-es fru- 



314 iSMS OLD AKD N^EW. 

gality and the spirit of accumulation, and He has never 
declared Himself an enemy to affluence. What He pro- 
tests against, what the Savior in our text seem.s to de- 
nounce, is the possibility of Mammon usurping in the soul 
the throne of God. Such a contingency the Scriptures 
in the strongest terms deplore. When the inspired writer 
exclaims: "If I have made gold my hope, or have said to 
the fine gold 'Thou art my confidence;' if I rejoiced be- 
cause my wealth was great, and because mine hand had 
gotten much — this were an iniquity to be punished by 
the judge, for I should have denied the God that is 
above;" and when the apostle warns: "Be not deceived, 
for neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor thieves, nor cov- 
etous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall 
inherit the kingdom of God;" and adds: "No covetous 
man who is an idolator hath any inheritance in the king- 
dom of Christ," we perceive not only the reality, but also 
the imminency of the peril; and when we read such pas- 
sages as "the wicked hath swallowed down riches, but he 
shall vomit them up again; God shall cast them out of his 
belly; though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare 
raiment as the clay, he may prepare it, but the just shall 
put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver:" "They 
that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the mul- 
titude of their riches cannot, by any means, redeem his 
brother, or give to God a ransom for him;" "Their silver 
and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day 
of the wrath of the Lord, they shall not satisfy their souls, 
because they are the stumbling-block of their iniquity," 
we discern the corrupting and debasing influence of Mam- 
monism, and the reasons why its reign should be detested 
and denounced. 

Thomas Carlyle thinks that modern society has gone 
over as never in the past to the service of this "The 
meanest and least erect of spirits that fell from heaven." 



THE MOIfEY MAKIA. 3l5 

In tlw Latter-Day 'Pamphlets he says: "The Universe is 
a huge, dull Cattle-stall and St. Catherine's Wharf; with a 
few pleasant apartments up-stairs for those that can make 
money. Make money and don't bother about the uni- 
verse ! That is M. Crowdy's notion; reckoned a quiet, 
innocent and rather wholesome notion just now; yet 
clearly fitter for a reflective pig than for a man." To 
which he adds that " Property is our god at present," 
and lawyers " our pontiffs, the highest priests we have." 
Unfortunately this representation is not without color of 
truth, and yet the shadows are altogether too deep and 
dark. Unquestionably we find the money plague every- 
where, and tainting everything. Society, literature, mor- 
ality, and religion have not escaped; and it is more than 
suspected that justice, patriotism, virtue, genius and 
piety are bought and sold in the market-place; and that 
were some modern Jugurtha to view the general venality 
he would cry out as that ancient Numidian did against 
Rome: "Rome itself is to sell, if anybody wants to buy 
it." But while it is true that the lust of gold distorts 
and deforms our civilization, it is hardly fair to speak of 
it as exceptionally Mammonized. I know of hardly an 
age in which the thirst for gain has not been intense and 
has not displayed itself, if not in mercantile pursuits, at 
least in militant aggressiveness. For the sake of gain 
barbarians have plundered monarchies and dismembered 
kingdoms, heartless soldiers have ravaged empires and 
blotted out nationalities, wild adventurers have braved 
unknown seas and explored savage continents; for the 
sake of gain the sanctities of the Jewish temple were in- 
vaded by the Babylonians, and the territory of the Greeks 
by the Persians; for the sake of gain Alexander rioted in 
blood and his successors in murderous deeds, the Romans 
in butchery, and the Goths, Vandals, and Arabs in cruel 
slaughter; for the sake of gain, after the self-denying 



316 ISMS OLD AlTD NEW. 

labors of Columbus, the new world was visited with inhu- 
manity and atrocities, and its unoffending inhabitants 
reduced to slavery or foully slain; and, for the sake of 
gain, ecclesiastics employed sacrilegious means, frauds, 
and abuses, their mercenary conduct reaching its climax 
in the sale of indulgences, and their degradation its com- 
pletion in the farcical procession of relics, whose charms 
were at least sufficient to magnetize the money of the 
people into the coffers of the priests. No age can 
claim a monopoly of sordid meanness. Covetousness, 
greediness, avariciousness, rapaciousness, and mercena- 
riness disjDlay themselves continuously in the chron- 
icles of history. Only a diseased mind will invest the 
warriors, chieftains, kings, and rulers of antiquity with 
heroic virtues, and insist on imputing exclusively to mod- 
ern representatives of power the vices of cupidity and 
parsimoniousness. The old leaders and sovereigns of the 
people were just as base as any in the new era, the only 
difference being that they were more openly and ruggedly 
freebooters than their successors, and took with the 
strong, mail-clad hand what is now filched in a gentler, 
kid-gloved fashion. Unaccountably blind is he who fails 
to recognize these facts, and who likewise overlooks the 
bountiful hospitality, the generous philanthropy, the free- 
hearted, open-handed munificence, that fosters educational 
and religious institutions of our times, which exalt the 
present age beyond its predecessors, and which vindicate 
it from the charge of exceptional, preeminent, and unmiti- 
gated Mammonism, brought against it by such writers as 
the cynical sage of Chelsea and the over-critical Ruskin. 

Nevertheless, while I utter this word of extenuation I 
realize that the vice complained of is sufficiently vigorous 
and widespread to occasion painful solicitude, and that it 
cannot but be advantageous for thoughtful souls to med- 
itate on its Cimmerian darkness and abysmal depths. 



IS POVERTY A CRIME? 317 

Mammonism perverts the judgment. When it obtains 
mastery it beclouds the intellect, suggests strange distinc- 
tions, and leads to the most absurd conclusions. This is 
especially discernible in its estimate of the relative virtue 
of affluence and poverty. While it is tolerant of evils and 
coquettes with notorious iniquities, it is particularly severe 
on indigence, and, indeed, regards it as a deeply-dyed sin, 
a sin that is mortal and unpardonable. For this it has 
no charity and no commiseration. Rarely is this opinion 
expressed in words, but it asserts itself in what speaks 
louder, — actions. The deference and respect shown by 
the rich to successful men, even w^hen they are more than 
suspected of business irregularities, is an indication of the 
confusion of moral judgments w^hich devotion to money 
breeds. Such questionable characters are feasted, con- 
sulted on grave occasions, and are invariably treated with 
a consideration far beyond their merits. If a poor man 
had not more sense and more personal worth he would not 
be tolerated even in a servile employment, and as for his 
views, they would not receive a moment's attention. What 
is it that makes the difference between them? Not knowl- 
edge necessarily, for the affluent may be as stupidly igno- 
rant as the indigent; nor virtue, for as we have intimated, 
one may be as vicious as the other. Evidently it is money. 
To the eye of Mammom bonds, stocks, acres, possessions 
of every kind, are inseparable from the individual who 
owns them, are part of himself, are incorporated with his 
personality, and when his worthiness is to be w^eighed 
ought to be placed alongside of him in the scale. But 
when honest poverty comes to be valued, lacking these 
things it lacks everything; and it is censured, criticised, 
condemned, in such tones and in such a manner as to leave 
the impression that it is more of a crime than a misfor- 
tune. Carlyle, referring to American society, speaks of 
our "anomalous dukes," "overgrown monsters of wealth," 



318 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

"who have made money by dealing in cotton, dealing in 
bacon, jobbing scrip, revered by surrounding flunkies, in- 
vested with real powers of sovereignty, and placidly ad- 
mitted by all men, as if nature and heaven had so ap- 
pointed it, to be in a sense godlike, to be royal and fit 
to shine in the firmament, though their real worth is — 
what?" His cynical language is as applicable to England 
as to America; and, unhappily, in both countries it is true 
that the coarsest piece of human crockery, "not worth five 
shillings of anybody's money," if stuffed, like the earthen 
idol of Somnauth, with "half a wagon load of gold coins," 
is looked upon by Mammon as a veritable deity entitled to 
the tremulous homage of mankind. 

That money sheds a kind of saintly aureole around the 
head of its possessor, in the judgment of those who have 
gained it in abundance, or who are seeking it unweariedly, 
may be inferred from the pleas that are invented to ex- 
tenuate his wrong-doings and the praises that are lavished 
on his good deeds. If a rich man is a faithless husband, 
reckless gambler, or a confirmed sot, such persons are 
ready to apologize that, considering his surroundings and 
temptations, it is quite remarkable that he behaves as well 
as he does. But the same rule is scarcely ever applied to 
the poor. The wretched beggar who abuses his wife, or 
who drowns his conscience in dram-drinking, is at once pro- 
nounced dangerous and worthless, and, if possible, is shut 
up in some penal institution or reformatory. Poor people 
are blamed for mingling with the vicious, when no other 
society is probably open to them, and they are condemned 
for vices which the peculiarities of their position have 
generated. Then, rich men can purchase a reputation for 
piety and generousness at a very small cost, and, however 
limited may be its extent, generally it is broad enough to 
cover a multitude of sins. If they hire pews, which they 
rarely occupy, they are model disciples; if they serve on 



THE RICH AND THE POOR. 319 

the board of a Theological Seminary or on a Hospital com- 
mittee, they are exemplary saints, and if they give two or 
three per cent of their income, duly advertised, they are 
public benefactors. But it is different with the poor. If 
they do not attend church, even where they are made to 
feel that they are not wanted, they are spoken of by the 
clergyman, in the saddest of tones, as the unevangelized 
and unreachable masses. Were they to take him at his 
word and come to the sanctuary, in some instances he 
would not be overjoyed to see them, and unquestionably 
his " beloved flock " would be shocked, and would stay at 
home. If they stint themselves to forward the interests 
of Christ's kingdom, or go down among the sick, and for 
the love of souls sacrifice ease and comfort, they are set 
down as fanatical folk or as not altogether sound in mind; 
and, as for their self-denying gifts, they are rarely appre- 
ciated at their true value, and cut no figure in newspaper 
reports. Different by far is it with the sordid affluent who 
give of their "superflux," and at best give only what is to 
them a bagatelle. Their donations are oftentimes mere 
attempts to purchase exemption from punishment due 
their iniquitous course in amassing wealth. The two prov- 
erbs quoted by Timothy Titcomb, somewhat similar in 
character, describe them accurately: "They steal a pig 
and give away the trotters for God's sake"; and "What 
the abbot of Bamba cannot eat he gives away for the 
good of his soul." This aptly pictures those who are 
committed to the worship of the money-god, and the pur- 
blind money-god mumbles an unconditional approval of a 
liberality so much to its liking. 

Mammonism corrupts the conscience. This is a serious 
evil; for God gave the moral sense to be our guide, and 
if that is debased there is no sufficient barrier anywhere 
against the triumph of evil. Woe to the nation or indi- 
vidual in whom this monitor is debauched; doomsday is 



320 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

not far off. The great Greek historian presents as a sign 
of the degradation of his own times that men spake of 
vices as though they were virtues, altering, as he says, 
" at their will and jDleasure the customary meaning of 
words in reference to actions." And when the human 
heart is intent on acquisition, when the highest object of 
life is money-getting, it is almost sure to do the same 
thing. Where the strife of trade is fiercest, and where 
the sordid are most active, maxims and precepts are cur- 
rent, which have doubtless originated with Mammon-wor- 
shipers, and which can hardly be traced to the Decalogue. 
It is an o|)en secret that such worshipers do not pretend 
to conduct business on the principles of the gospel, but 
have devised for themselves a gospel of self-interest and 
overreaching. To create a panic and then ride on its 
stormy waves to affluence is called "a smart operation," 
and to acquire a fortune by means which involve the ruin 
of hundreds, and which beforehand were known to be 
despicable and pregnant with untold misery, is considered 
as both legitimate and commendable. And even when 
companies are formed by speculators, who imagine, and 
possibly sincerely believe, that their projects are sure to 
yield enormous profits, but who have not taken sufficient 
pains to ascertain all the facts in the case, and who by 
their highly-colored representations draw to their coffers 
the savings of the industrious and helpless, when they 
explode and the victims wring their hands with sorrow, 
instead of being denounced, are spoken of simply as 
"somewhat questionable affairs." To take contracts for 
public buildings or other improvements and execute them 
in such a way as to jeopardize health, property, and life, 
and to slaughter thousands of the country's defenders 
by shoddy supplies and grow fat on the spoils, are not 
looked upon as practices which should entail on the 
offenders the indignation of the plutocracy. But what a 



TYRAN]S^Y OF MAMMON". 321 

moth-eaten, fly-blown and gangrened conscience must such 
conceptions of right produce ? They may lead to mate- 
rial affluence, but they foster irreparable moral indigence. 

Similar must be the effect of the petty tricks and de- 
ceptions perpetrated by small dealers and tradesmen on 
their unwary customers. While many among them are 
above reproach, not a few, in whom the instinct of gain 
drowns every other feeling, are guilty of systematic and 
continuous meanness to avoid giving a fair equivalent for 
the money they receive. As the ceaseless dropping of 
water wears away the solid rock, so these repeated acts 
gradually destroy the moral life, and prepare the way for 
greater recklessness in the pursuit of wealth. Lured by 
this glittering idol, men of this type engage in the nefa- 
rious rum traffic, in gambling, horse-race betting, lotteries, 
and in other evils by which the hopes and happiness of 
thousands are blighted. They have determined to be 
rich; they are indifferent as to the means. No matter 
what laws are violated or hearts broken, what wrongs are 
committed or rights ignored, what innocence is sacrificed 
or guilt incurred, they will be rich, — honestly if they can, 
dishonestly if they must. To the attainment of this one 
object they have devoted everything, — strength, health, 
body, soul. At this altar they are prepared to immolate 
all that they are and have, — even to their conscience. 
That they bind, strangle, slay, and present as a whole 
burnt offering to appease the insatiableness of the yellow, 
dusty, dirty deity whose golden smile they covet. 

And just here we have the explanation of some of the 
evils under which the working classes groan. Mammonism 
having no conscience, no truth, it regards those whom it 
uses for its own advancement as having no soul. Long 
hours, short pay for the laborer, short hours and long pay 
for the capitalist, is its doctrine. It believes in the divine 
and exclusive right of money. Full banks, surplus cash 
31 



322 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

and driving commerce are of more importance in its estima- 
tion than human amelioration. If to secure these ends en- 
tire populations must be oppressed, starved and degraded, 
so much the worse for the populations, but they must never- 
theless submit to the inevitable. It is blind and deaf to the 
fact that no eternal law devotes nine-tenths of the race to 
drudgery; that no divine policy of economics discrimi- 
nates against labor, and that no heavenly or earthty reason 
exists why it should be so wretchedly rewarded as to ren- 
der the poor-house, or something worse, its final haven. 
And it stupidly fails to perceive that the science of world- 
ly interests, as now understood, is a monstrous piece of 
botching, as absurd as it is inhuman, and that as long as 
it is relied on we need not expect to see any radical 
abatement of evils which are perpetuating barbarism and 
breeding dissensions. 

But Mammonism also debases the affections. It tears 
from the heart the image of wife, children, country, home, 
and even God, and rears instead the bejeweled and be- 
dizened image of itself. The faith, trust and love due 
humanity, and supremely due the Almighty, it appropri- 
ates to its own service, and demands that they. shall lavish 
all their strength and beauty on its repulsive charms. 
What is home or country to the man who is intoxicated 
with the gold poison ? He will neglect the one and sell 
the other. His children may grow up uneducated or mis- 
educated for all he cares, and they may be as naked in 
body as they are beggared in mind for all he thinks or 
heeds. He loves money with a love that will not brook a 
rival, and his own flesh and blood is but as dull clay in 
comparison with the diamond worth and brilliancy of his 
idol. Hence the number of families in our day who are 
totally neglected by their fathers, and permitted to grow 
up as they please; and hence the increasing recklessness, 
insubordination and lawlessness among the young. 



SOKDID SAIJs'TS. 323 

Perhaps the more terrible illustration of the power of 
this vice is furnished by those who profess to be the chil- 
dren of God, to love Him and their fellow beings, and who 
are continually confronted by the realities of eternity, and 
yet cling to their money as though it were their Savior, or 
dole it out as though it were the life drops from a martyr's 
veins. Though a world lies in ruins, though humanity is 
cursed with sin and sorrow, and though they are being 
whirled with the velocity of earth's diurnal revolution 
toward the judgment bar, they cling to that which if 
wisely used would bring salvation to all mankind. They 
stint their own spiritual nature, begrudging the paltry 
dollars which decency compels them to offer in return for 
the bread of life, and seem more inclined to see the souls 
of others starve than part with their hoarded wealth. They 
love the image of liberty on the golden coin more than the 
image of God in the human heart. Such professors are like 
Mont Blanc, stately, imposing to the eye, lustrous outward- 
ly, but frigid at heart, holding their treasures as that giant 
mountain hoards its snows, originating no rivers, nourish- 
ing no waste places, but simply filling the atmosphere with 
inhospitable cold. It seems to me that every time they 
think of themselves they must be overwhelmed with shame, 
and that "were it not for the interposition of sleep," which, 
as it has been said by a quaint preacher, "separates all 
men once in twenty-four hours from the consciousness of 
their own meanness, they would die of self -contempt." 

i^m I not warranted, then, from these facts in charging 
upon this miserable vice the savageness that fills our civil- 
ization with sorrow and with suffering ? From this source 
does it mainly spring; and ought we, therefore, to be sur- 
prised that the Savior should positively assert the irrecon- 
cilableness of Mammonism with the service of God? 
Surely not. Ruskin has said, sharply but truly: "The 
immediate office of the earthquake and pestilence is to 



324 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

slay us like moths, and, as moths, we shall be wise to live 
out of their way. So the practical and immediate office of 
gold and diamonds is the multiplied destruction of souls, 
in whatever sense you have been taught to understand 
that phrase." How can it be otherwise ? A passion that 
perverts, corrupts and debases, that blinds the mind, 
deadens the conscience and degrades the affections, is 
necessarily soul-destroying. It has no welcome for God, 
no desire for His blessing, no joy in His service; but 
gradually paralyzes the religious nature, and consumes all 
spiritual susceptibility. Before heaven is reached this 
fever has burnt up everything that fits for heaven, and 
before hell opens wide its ponderous gates this frenzy has 
plunged the shriveled spirit into the depths of deepest 
fire. 

" Oh, cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake 
The fool throM^s up his interest in both worlds 
First starved in this, then damned in that to come." 

Mammon may be a good and useful servant, but he is 
a foul and tyrannous lord. His shackles no true man 
should consent to wear. They may be broken, they should 
be despised. When Camillus found Sulpitious trying to 
rescue Rome from the barbarian by large sums of money 
he proudly exclaimed: "It is with steel, not gold, that 
Romans guard their country." And it is with the sword 
of the Spirit, and not with paltry pelf, that our nation is 
to be helped and delivered from savagery. That sword in 
the hands of Christ can free the people from the disgrace- 
ful semi-barbarism which now afflicts. Take the Word of 
God, accept its teachings, make its Divine Author "Mas- 
ter," and in submitting to His authority, that which is 
now your lord will become your slave. All you now pos- 
sess in this world you may continue to possess; but with 
Christ in your heart its relation to you will be changed. It 
will be your servant, not your sovereign, and you will send 



MAMMON^ CO^-QUERED. 325 

it on messages of peace and mercy to the ends of the 
earth. And with the sense of emancipation will come the 
feeling of proprietorship in more than silver can buy or 
gold secure. However poor you may be in the perishable 
riches, you will realize that you own all things. Looking 
up into God's face you will be able to say "My Father"; 
the universe will be yours in the highest sense, for you 
will have attained the art of appropriating its inner treas- 
ures. Christ yours, the church yours, heaven yours, — 
what more can be needed to complete your felicity ? Here 
have we true riches; blessed is he who finds them! 

" Leave wealth behind ; bring God thy heart-best light 
To guide thy wavering steps through life's dark night; 
God spurns the riches of a thousand coffers, 
And says : ' My chosen is he, his heart who offers ; 
Nor gold nor silver seek I, but, above 
All gifts, the heart, and buy it with my love ; 
Yes, one sad, contrite heart, which men despise. 
More than my throne and fixed decree I prize ! ' " 



PAUPERISM. 

" Ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye 
may do them good." Math, xiv, 1. 

"All the care 
Ingenious parsimony takes, but just 
Saves the small inventory, bed and stool. 
Skillet and old carved chest, from public sale. 
They live, and live without extorted alms 
From grudging hands, but other boast have none 
To soothe their honest pride that scorns to beg." 

Cowpev. 

I AM reminded by the breath of autumn, chill prophet 
of winter's approaching frost, and by the tattered 
forms of trees, gaunt harbingers of earth's melancholy 
season, of those sad classes against whose doors the snow 
forever beats and drives, and through whose " looped and 
windowed raggedness " the biting wind too freely blows. 

" Take physic, pomp ; 
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel ; 
That thou may'st shake the supertiux to them, 
And show the heavens more just." 

Christianity is the eldest and only born daughter of 
that venerable religion whose care for the poor was among 
the chiefest of its glories. Whatever may be said to the 
discredit of Judaism, it cannot fairly be charged that the 
unfortunate were neglected in its ministrations. It was a 
thoroughly humane system, seeking to shield the weak 
from the strong, and to protect the indigent from the 
rapacious exactions of the affluent. Pinched want and 
heaped plenty were never known during its sway, as they 



GOD AXD THE POOR. 327 

have been since, and under dispensations reputed to sur- 
pass it in philanthropy. Rarely were men seen in Israel 
who had been fleeced, stripped, and beggared by the 
heartless schemes of capitalists and monopolists; and only 
toward the close of its history was such a contrast pos- 
sible as that which Jesus painted in the parable of Dives 
and Lazarus. Pauperism and mendicancy were not among 
the crying evils of the nation in its palmy days, in the 
days when its people were free, and when princes of the 
house of Judah reigned. In those halcyon times, from 
psalms of praise and from sacred statutes continually was 
heard the voice of God befriending the friendless and 
pleading the cause of the necessitous. " Blessed is he 
that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in 
time of trouble;" "The needy shall not always be forgot- 
ten, the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever," 
chanted the singers; "Whoso reproacheth the poor re- 
proacheth his Maker," echoed the teachers. " When thou 
goest into thy neighbor's vineyard," the law enacted, 
" thou mayest eat grapes thy fill, but thou shalt not put 
any in thy vessel;" and it commanded the landowners to 
leave standing the corn in the corners of the field, and not 
to turn back to gather in the gleanings. These were for 
the foodless and the destitute. The law likewise forbade 
the rich to impose charges on the poor for money lent; 
and, if a garment had been pledged for security, it de- 
creed: "In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge 
when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own 
raiment." Such provisions as these, and others that I 
care not to recall, prove that the mother of Christianity 
looked tenderly on poverty, did not stigmatize it as a 
crime, but regarded it as a misfortune to be treated with 
with the most generous compassion. 

But what of the daughter? Has she inherited these 
traditions and this spirit? That it was the Lord's will that 



328 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

she should do so is evident from His own ministry. It is 
said that' "the common people heard Him gladly," and 
their attention to His words may have been largely se- 
cured by His thoughtfulness of their bodies. Wherever 
He went He healed the sick, restored the lame, opened the 
eyes of the blind, fed the starving multitude with miracu- 
lous bread, and in these various ways evinced His interest 
in their temporal well-being. Even in "preaching the 
gospel to the poor," which He adduced in support of His 
Messianic claims, He sought to deliver them from the evils 
of this life almost as much as to prepare them for the life 
to come. He was not only the Savior of the lowly, He 
was their Benefactor as well. And that His disciples were 
to share with Him in this mission of philanthropy is inti- 
mated not only in the kindly words of the text, and in the 
command, "Freely ye have received, freely give," but by 
the fact that one of His little company carried "the bag," 
whose scanty contents were devoted to the worthy indi- 
gent. Thus was He understood by the primitive church, 
and hence in her early history, to meet peculiar or press- 
ing exigencies, all possessions were held in common, and 
to secure equality of distribution a special office was insti- 
tuted. While this Christian communism speedily passed 
away, the apostles did not hesitate to enjoin upon the 
churches the most liberal charity. Contributions were 
called for in aid of the more destitute brethren, and were 
cheerfully given by the more prosperous. In Paul's second 
letter to the Corinthians considerable attention is paid to 
this subject, where a few comprehensive and wide-reaching 
principles are laid down for the regulation of benevolence, 
and in other portions of the New Testament its exercise 
is made the test of true discipleship. There it is written: 
" Whoso hath this world's goods and seeth his brother in 
need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, 
how dwelleth the love of God in him ? " And even when 



THE CHURCH AXD THE POOR. 329 

the object of compassion is not a brother the law of Christ 
reads: ''If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, 
give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of 
fire on his head." In this manner we perceive that the 
new religion went forth charged with the spirit of the old, 
and that large-heartedness and open-handedness were to be 
its distinguishing features perpetually. Whatever changes 
might overtake it, however its doctrinal conceptions might 
be modified or its ecclesiastical government be altered, its 
beneficence was to be abiding. To ignore its relations to 
the poor or to neglect its duty to the indigent would not 
only falsify its character, but would strip it of its most 
heavenly and convincing credentials. 

This was recognized very distinctly by the followers of 
Christ in the centuries succeeding the first. They culti- 
vated feelings of benignity, kindness, sympathy and boun- 
teousness. Everywhere were they known by their frater- 
nal interest in the suffering and oppressed, by their cordial 
recognition of the manhood of the slave, and by their 
humane provisions for the sick and the poor, the homeless 
and houseless, the fatherless children and husbandless 
wives. Every Sabbath collections were taken for the un- 
fortunate, and even seasons of sore trial, when the alms- 
giver was hardly any better off than the alms-receiver, did 
not hinder the discharge of this sacred duty. AVithin the 
church all worshipers were equal. No distinction between 
the slave and his master, between the high and the low, 
was allowed in the solemn services of the sanctuary. They 
met on the same level; they separated on the same plane. 
Beneath the humble roof of the house consecrated to the 
glory of God, or within the dreary catacombs, where the 
outcast sect fled for religious consolation, rank and afflu- 
ence, genius and learning, received as brethren the ob- 
scure, the ignorant and the moneyless. In those days the 
church was a refuge, an asylum, a retreat, a fortress and 



330 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

defense. There the victim of cruelty was comforted and 
protected, and there the wayward and fallen were wel- 
comed to penitence and hope. The altars of the church 
covered the nakedness of the orphan, rejected the offer- 
ings of the violent and vicious, repelled the homage of 
the unjust and luxurious, and wreathed a blessing in 
their holy incense for the souls of all who emanci- 
pated the bondsman, delivered the captive, and defended 
the friendless. This spirit of philanthropy, which led 
a Christian woman to found the first public hospital, 
which constrained Constantine to abolish crucifixion, and 
which impelled Justinian to encourage manumission, was 
cultivated at every cost and at every hazard. The treas- 
ures of the church and the lives of her members were 
devoted to its service. To redeem the people who had 
become prisoners to the Goths, Ambrose sold the orna- 
ments of the altar at Milan; and Acacius, to free seven 
thousand Persian captives, satisfied the triumphant Ro- 
mans with the precious vessels and golden plate of the 
Basilica. To these ecclesiastical worthies a man was worth 
more than a miter, a soul was more than a triple crown, 
and beneficent acts higher signs of their vocation than 
pallium, stole and scapulary. During the ravages of pes- 
tilences, such as depopulated Carthage, Alexandria and 
Edessa, the disciples of Christ cared for the sick and 
dying who had been abandoned by their heathen relatives, 
and during the devastations of war such as desolated the 
fair fields of Italy they were ever the mediators and the 
fearless ambassadors of peace. Ministers of mercy, friends 
of humanity, they made the impression on society that 
religion is essentially philanthropic, that it had come to 
assuage grief, relieve poverty and succor helplessness. To 
this Julian, the emperor, traced the prevalence of their 
sentiments, and to this may be attributed the rise of the 
myriad charities which beautify and bless both Europe 



PREVALENCE OF POVERTY. 331 

and America. As Lecky says of Christianity, and says 
truly, "It has covered the globe with countless institutions 
of mercy, absolutely unknown to the whole pagan world. 
It has indissolubly united in the minds of men the idea of 
supreme goodness wdth that of active and constant benev- 
olence. It has placed in every parish a religious minister, 
who, whatever may be his other functions, has at least 
been officially charged with the superintendence of an 
organization of charity, and who finds in this office one 
of the most important as well as one of the most legiti- 
mate sources of his power." A sublime fact, which, how- 
ever, in our day unhappily must be qualified, as the aver- 
age minister does not seem to be particularly devoted to 
this part of his heavenly mission. 

The Earl of Beaconsfield, no mean critic of his period, 
seems to regard it as very questionable whether society is 
any happier now, and the masses of the people more pros- 
perous and freer from the curse of poverty, than they were 
in the olden times when the church watched over them and 
cared for them in this spirit of beneficence. There are 
passages in his romance entitled Sybil which appear to 
intimate that the poorer classes in our day are more 
wretched and helpless than in the past. For instance, in 
one place he says, referring to the monastic age: "There 
were yeomen then, sir. The country was not divided into 
two classes, masters and slaves; there was some resting- 
place between luxury and misery. Comfort was an Eng- 
lish habit then, not merely an English word"; and at an- 
other point in the story he adds: "Christianity teaches us 
to love our neighbor; modern society acknowledges no 
neighbor." Still more unequivocally he writes in another 
connection: "There is more serfdom in England now than 
at any time since the Conquest. I speak of what passes 
under my daily eyes when I say that those who labor can 
as little choose or change their masters now as when they 



332 ISMS OLD AN^D NEW. 

were born thralls. There are great bodies of the working 
classes of this country nearer the condition of brutes than 
they have been at any time since the Conquest. Indeed, 
I see nothing to distinguish them from brutes, except that 
their morals are inferior." However harsh and censorious 
these views may sound, they are not without supporters. 
Not a few candid thinkers sympathize with them, espe- 
cially in the Old World. 

It is insisted by many that in our age "the rich are 
growing richer and the poor are growing poorer." Mr. 
Thornton, an English writer, in his book on Over Popula- 
tion, maintains that the condition of the working classes 
to-day is worse than it was in the middle ages. He con- 
demns, in common with Mr. Wright, author of Our JVeio 
Masters, "the ignorance of those who argue in the face 
of facts that the English peasantry of the middle ages 
were less comfortably situated than their living descend- 
ants because they used barley instead of wheaten flour, 
ate off wooden platters, never knew the luxury of a cotton 
shirt or of a cup of tea, and slept on straw pallets within 
walls of wattled plaster," and concludes with the state- 
ment: "Although ruder means were employed to supply 
the wants of nature, every want was abundantly satisfied, 
which is far indeed from being the case at the present." 
These gentlemen show that Hallam and Froude are more 
than inclined to this view, incidentally confirming it in 
their histories. Hallam distinctly says: "I find it difficult 
to resist the conclusion that, however the laborer has de- 
rived benefit from the cheapness of manufactured com- 
modities, and from many inventions of common utility, 
he is much inferior in ability to support a family than 
were his ancestors four centuries ago." But taking for 
granted that these writers over-state the case, there is still 
abundant reason for looking on the present condition of 
society with solicitude. 



EXTENT OF THE EVIL. 333 

Vast estates are accumulating in a few hands, and only 
the extent of our territory averts from the New World 
many of the land difficulties which distract the Old. Mo- 
nopolies and gigantic capital lord it over labor and hold 
millions of human beings in a condition approaching that of 
serfdom, \yages are precarious, and sometimes depend on 
voting the political ticket of employers, — so farcical is our 
boasted right of suffrage, — and they are pitiably scant, 
considering the extravagant prices that are demanded for 
the common necessaries of life. In England the number 
of paupers steadily increases; in France, also, after vigor- 
ous and partially successful endeavors to reduce it, again 
it is multiplying. In Holland and Belgium, formerly com- 
paratively free from mendicity, beggars and beggary are 
becoming more general, and even in this country, although 
wonderfully favored and prosperous, these evils are enlarg- 
ing and are rapidly attaining to portentous proportions. 
That in Europe there are millions of peasants who have 
little else than black bread to eat, and that there are thou- 
sands in every great American city who can scarcely find 
a crust to blunt the hungry edge of appetite, and that 
there are other thousands w^io, strive as they may, can 
hardly keep the wolf from the door, and who, to drown 
the sense of overhanging doom, snatch a fearful joy from 
restless dissipation, are among the commonplaces of daily 
observation. With untold multitudes of our fellow-beings 
existence is a tragedy composed of accumulating evils, un- 
satisfied desire, impatience with the present and weariness 
of the past, whose brief pauses between the acts are un- 
cheered by the excruciating efforts which the orchestra 
makes toward music, otherwise known as pleasure. Not 
veiled as at Egyptian festivals does a specter sit to remind 
them of life's hollowness, but at every scant meal does it 
preside, uncovered in the light of day, its fleshless lips de- 
riding their despair, and its hard, cold fingers paralyzing 



334 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

their strength. Nothing brought they into the world, and 
nothing have they in it. Like the Phrygian Tantalus, 
they are overwhelmed, but not in water, and they starve 
with the rich clusters of plenty hanging in their sight. 
Their efforts to win a living are Sisyphean in their fu- 
tility, — the stone rolls back only to crush them. Every- 
where between Jerusalem and Jericho humanity is found 
mutilated by its own vices or plundered by its enemies, 
naked, famished, bleeding, and the good Samaritan at his 
wit's end to discover a remedy. Now it is a laboring man 
trying to support a family on a miserable pittance, disheart- 
ened by disease and the precariousness of employment; or it 
is a widow woman with helpless children and failing health; 
or it is a household cursed with drunken parents and mad- 
dened by repeated disappointments; or it is a wretched 
girl cheated of her earnings that the coffers of soulless 
affluence may be filled, and driven by beggary to crime; 
or it is the untutored and fatherless boy, hungry, weak, 
and ragged, pinched with cold and foul with dirt, that lifts 
up the imploring voice: "Have compassion, — have com- 
passion on me, fine ladies and gentlemen ! " Multiply 
these cases by the hundreds, and then add to them thou- 
sands of others, burrowing in cellars and shivering in gar- 
rets, miseducated, uneducated, incompetent people, who 
have been sent into the mad conflict of life like soldiers 
uniformless and weaponless; and supplement these help- 
less crowds with the victims of our rapacious, grinding, 
heartless civilization, among whom can be found a host 
who have been maimed, disabled, and mutilated in its ser- 
vice, and you may form a faint idea of the dimensions of 
the unfortunate and melancholy army that staggers on its 
way to the grave under the tattered banner of poverty. 

No wonder that the tender heart of Philanthropy is 
appalled at such a sight; no wonder that at times she sits 
with folded hands in utter hopelessness of ever being able 



VISIONS OP PLENTY. 335 

to remove the evil, and no wonder if, choking with sobs, 
her gloom rises into a wail, and she hoarsely sings: 

" These things confound me, 

They settle on my brain ; 
The very air around me 

Is universal pain. 
The air is damp with weeping, 

Rarely the sun shines clear 
On any but those sleeping 

Upon the quiet bier." 

And yet she should not despair. Poverty is neither 
indestructible nor inevitable. We have fair promises from 
heaven pointing to its extinction, and we have sweet 
visions seen from of old of teeming millions rejoicing in 
abundance, and crowned with prosperity. Better believe 
that we have failed to discern or wisely to apply the means 
for the fulfillment of these predictions than that they shall 
utterly fail, and the earth be perpetually afflicted. Un- 
doubtedly there are errors and mistakes which measurably 
account for the present deplorable state of things, which, 
if they could only be distinctly seen and remedied, the way 
would be prepared for better times. What the gravest of 
these are I desire to point out, not to discuss them in full, 
and if I am successful in my humble endeavor I may at least 
do something toward the ultimate solution of the grave 
problem that now burdens the thought of every enlight- 
ened and loving soul. And I address these reflections 
especially to the church; for, as we have seen, God com- 
mitted to her the poor, and she is certainly more responsible 
than any other organization for their condition. 

In my judgment the continuance of poverty and the 
spread of Pauperism are largely due to the selfish prin- 
ciple which underlies the structure of modern society, and 
which permeates and ramifies through all its departments. 
SeK-interest is the supreme rule everywhere. Men are in 



336 ISMS OLD AKD NEW. 

haste to be rich. The end of their striving is wealth; as 
money in our age is the representative of ease, respect, 
homage, and even of political preferment, they rush madly 
toward it, careless of the thousands they may trample be- 
neath their feet in the race. Finance is the god of the 
present, and there seems to be no pity in the heart of its 
worshipers. The influence of the commercial idea, elevat- 
ing in some of its aspects, and beneficent, has been de- 
moralizing and disorganizing in others. It has created 
the impression that everything has its price, and that even 
faith, honor, patriotism, justice, chastity, the esteem of 
men, and the grace of God, are objects of trade and bar- 
ter. The result is that the calculating spirit is dominant, 
and it has passed into an axiom that the employer should 
give as little as possible to labor, not as much as he can 
reasonably afford. Over-reaching has quite thrust aside as 
antiquated and impracticable the old law of " do as you 
would be done by," and it is generally voted inapplicable 
to modern times. The current maxim is. Get as much for 
as little as possible; and the Workman naturally adopts it, 
and renders as little as he can for as much as he can get. 
Consequently there is at bottom no good feeling between 
these classes, neither confidence nor sympathy, respect nor 
love. They are preying on each other, doing their best 
under forms of law to plunder each other, and in the 
tussle the laborer generally comes out second best. The 
struggle for existence between them is deadly and fierce, 
and unfortunately the fittest does not always survive. 
From the unequal contest the lowly emerge disheartened, 
and frequently disabled. Fifty cents for writing all day, 
fifty cents for plying a sewing-machine ten hours, fifty 
cents for bending over some sickening task, fifty cents the 
total earnings of a woman trying to guard her little ones 
from starvation, and but little more to be earned by fam- 
ished hundreds in the largest business establishments. 



ADAM SMITH. 337 

Are you surprised that there is poverty ? Are you sur- 
prised that the multiplied horrors of their life should drive 
many to intemperance, thence to more bitter poverty 
still ? Are you amazed, even when wages reach the mu- 
nificent sum of two or three dollars a day, employment 
being irregular and family sickness frequent, that it is not 
easy to lay anything by, and that the hopelessness of the 
fight should induce recklessness and despair? I cannot 
say that I am. I am rather persuaded that much of the 
prevalent indigence and appalling destitution may be 
traced to the mistaken notion that social and economic 
laws teach that capital in its own interest must wring 
from labor all that it can get. There never was a greater 
delusion ; for, as I have already argued, there is no law hu- 
man or divine, that countenances such insane and barbar- 
ous inequalities. 

If it shall be said there is no help for what appears to 
be so hard on labor, I deny it. The study of Sociology is 
yet in its infancy. There must be an outlet from the 
present confusion and muddle. After ages of pain and 
thought we have reached the conclusion that government 
is for the well-being of the many, and that the ruler of a 
nation is the servant of the people, not their dictator; 
and in time to come we shall be able to formulate a simi- 
lar organizing principle for society, which, while discard- 
ing the blunders of Communism, will direct the energies of 
commerce and trade in every department toward the hap- 
piness of the many, not as at present, for the lordly afflu- 
ence of the few. Then capital will be the brother of labor, 
not its king; and then labor will be the friend of capital, 
not its slave. Another Adam Smith will in coming years 
assuredly arise, and in a work grander than the W^ealth of 
Nations will discourse on the true relations that exist be- 
tween the employer and the employed; and will point out 
how the rich gifts of providence can be distributed more 
22 



338 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

equally among all classes. He will doubtless show that a 
State cannot arfford quietly to look on and see its citizens 
pauperized; that it must legislate in the interest of the 
masses for the sake of its national spirit; and he will un- 
questionably demonstrate that capital and labor can coop- 
erate to the advantage of both, and that by regulating 
competition, and by educating and even providing for the 
young, so that they do not, as at present, enter into disas- 
trous rivalry with their seniors, many of the accursed evils 
which have domesticated themselves among us may be 
cured at least in part, if not altogether. 

In the meanwhile is it suggested that wealthy employ- 
ers must give to charitable institutions for the ameliora- 
tion of crying evils? If they can do nothing better, let 
them do that. But let it not be forgotten that what the 
working classes require is ampler remuneration, not char- 
ity, a fair equivalent for service rendered, not an alms. 
They demand what belongs to them as men, not what is 
due the infirm and helpless. Take the money that might 
be given to benevolent organizations and pay honest toil 
a better price, and you will soon render their existence 
unnecessary. Christian capitalists should do this, even if 
none others do. While our public charities are in one 
sense our glory, in another they are our shame; for they 
proclaim the vice, injustice, stupidity, and oppression that 
have rendered their existence imperative. Get rid of 
them as rapidly as possible by a new and wiser course 
toward the dependent. If men of means would incorpo- 
rate their private donations and their public contributions 
into their wage list they could abate their own taxes, and 
they would at the same time abate Pauperism and con- 
tribute to the permanent prosperity of society. 

Another source of the evil we are considering can be 
detected in the blundering, undiscriminating methods of 
charity which we have adopted, and which we adhere to 



WARiflifGS FEOM HISTORY. 339 

in the face of protests uttered by observation and experi- 
ence. History confirms with its testimony the fact that 
lavish and unguarded benevolence tends to pauperize a 
community. Lecky shows that among the Romans corn 
was freely distributed to the people, and that under Caius 
Gracchus it was sold by the government at a merely nom- 
inal rate. These measures were corrupted by conscience- 
less men who sought the popular favor, and in the time of 
Julius Caesar three hundred and twenty thousand persons 
were recipients of state assistance, and the number in- 
creased to eight hundred thousand under the Antonines. 
The result was demoralizing; industry was paralyzed. 
The people were not satisfied with the corn; they de- 
manded and received oil and meat in addition. In time 
they looked upon these gratuities as their right, and, in 
proportion as they did so, they fell away from that self- 
reliant manhood that had formerly been their country's 
glory. Similar results followed the excessive and incon- 
siderate charity of the church of the middle ages, so that 
at the dawn of the Reformation Europe was an extensive 
poor-house. It had destroyed forethought and prudence, 
had multiplied religious impostors, and established beg- 
ging fraternities. Spencer, in a few sharjo sentences, 
shows the baleful effects of the Elizabethan poor-laws — 
1601, — and it is well known that these and other public 
and private benefactions entailed such frightful evils on 
England that they had to be made the subject of Parlia- 
mentary inquiry, and so grave have been the disclosures 
that various writers, reviewing the past and the present, 
have come to the conclusion " that charity is the real 
cause of Pauperism." While I cannot go as far, I yet 
firmly believe that when it is indiscriminately adminis- 
tered it fosters the evil it ought to allay. In France, 
after many bitter experiences, especially from the years 
1093 to 1793, legislation succeeded in reducing Pauperism 



340 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

by enforcing the principles of industry, and in my opinion 
it can be restrained only by the adoption of similar meas- 
ures. 

There are two classes of poor, the worthy and the un- 
worthy, or, as they have been distinguished by some one, 
''the Lord's poor and the devil's poor," "the poor of provi- 
dence and the poor of imjDrovidence." As a rule the latter 
always get whatever the generous have to bestow. If you 
have a relief society you will find it taken possession of by 
those who have no claims on its bounty. They crowd the 
worthy out, and systematically deceive the benevolent. 
Much money is daily given away to unknown applicants 
by individuals who have not the leisure to scrutinize their 
character. It is bestowed in the hope that it may not be 
misapplied, and yet frequently this liberality is guilty of 
a double wrong, — it encourages the improvident, and by 
consuming the means that might have relieved the deserv- 
ing robs them of wliat God ordained as their portion. The 
only safety lies in rigid, though kindly, examination of all 
persons who desire assistance. To render this effectual 
there should be an organization and unification of all 
charities. The community should be districted, and after 
proper care the names enrolled of all who are deserving of 
help. This course has been pursued in several cities with 
marked success. It has found out the worthy who really 
needed help, and it has exposed the worthless who were 
following mendicancy as a business. Wherever it has been 
adopted Pauperism has declined, and the community been 
purged of its worst and most demoralizing elements. 

In this connection I am constrained to say that the 
failure to kee23 before us the true end of charity has mili- 
tated against its efficacy. Discrimination is imperatively 
demanded here. The design of benevolence is not merely 
to mitigate present misery, but rather to help the unfortu- 
nate permanently to help themselves. Christ, in His min- 



DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 341 

istry, restored to the helpless their sight or their strength, 
so that they could independently earn their bread, and 
in so doing He has given us an example to follow. While 
occasions are frequent when temporary relief is needed, 
and should be given, philanthropy should seek above all 
else to make the poor self-sustaining. It should seek to 
awaken feelings of personal dignity and self-respect in 
their breasts, and encourage them to rely on their own 
energies. Hence it should always rather provide work 
than bread, opportunity than clothing, situations in which 
to toil rather than institutions in which to rest. Were 
this kind of discrimination practiced, I am satisfied we 
would soon rejoice in a more provident and prosperous 
people. 

One more thought and T am done. Of late I have come 
to believe that the thrift of poverty in our times may to 
some extent be attributed to the church. It seems to me 
that she has divorced from her altars that work of charity 
which she received from her Lord, and which in the primi- 
tive age was her glory. Understand me, I do not mean 
that her members do not aid the suffering in private, or 
fail to sustain public measures by their sympathy and 
their alms. I presume that they give liberally in various 
directions and encourage nearly every humanitarian cause. 
What I complain of is not that, but that as an organization 
she does comparatively so little for the relief of the desti- 
tute. She has handed over this ministry to other bodies. 
She contributes to the support of these bodies and surren- 
ders to them the field. As a consequence we hear it fre- 
quently said that this or that benevolent society is doing 
more for the poor than the church. A reproach is taken 
up against us that diminishes our influence on society. 
That were, of course, a small matter, were the work for 
which we are responsible accomplished; but it is not, and 
in my judgment never can be by any other instrumental- 



342 iSMS OLD AKD NEW. 

ity. The more dependent classes are drifting a\^ay from 
us, because the impression has steadily grown that the 
church as such is not interested in them. When they learn 
that it is sometimes difficult to obtain money to bury her 
poor, and more difficult to find means to keep them alive, 
they naturally take it as a hint that they are not wanted. 
It is impossible to explain that the members are now bur- 
dened with the demands of this or that institution, for the 
unfortunate are not in the mood for drawing nice distinc- 
tions. They judge from the surface, and as it appears 
on the surface that very inadequate provision is made for 
their class, they look upon themselves as thrust out from 
the household of faith. Of course they are wrong, but the 
only way to convince them of the fact is for the church to 
resume her functions as a philanthropic society. 

I am urgent on this point. She has committed her 
temperance work to reform societies of more or less effi- 
ciency; she has surrendered her city missions to the care 
of independent organizations, and even her members, when 
they develop marked ability and exceptional zeal, too fre- 
quently set up for themselves, or go out and do for Young 
Men's Christian Associations what they ought to do within 
her boundaries and for her success. Rapidly she is depriv- 
ing herself of everything like a distinctive mission among 
men. Complex union meetings and special evangelistic 
efforts she substitutes for her own direct endeavors to win 
souls to Christ; movements to succor penitent criminals 
or to aid the worthy poor she allows to take her place in 
bringing help and healing, and what is left to her of actual 
service to mankind is hardly worth recording. If ever the 
church perishes it will be because she has rendered herself 
unnecessary to the world; and if ever she regains her posi- 
tion she must resume her God-given vocation, have less 
care about being aristocratic and ornamental, and become 
practical and useful. Nor can she better begin her refor- 



MOTIVES TO BEKEVOLENCE. 343 

mation than by taking up her long-neglected ministry to 
the indigent, seeking them out and enriching them with 
her beneficence. 

Do you suggest that such a course would call to her a 
host of impostors and of worthless idlers? Possibly: but 
she is under no obligation to give her money to them, 
and a little judicious discrimination would soon disperse 
them. But supposing that they came, the message of 
truth from her lips might reclaim many, and the thousands 
of others who would throng her courts would be stimulated 
to earnest endeavor and industry. It is her influence on 
character that renders her so important an instrumentality 
in curing the evil of poverty. She is able to quicken dor- 
mant sensibilities, to arouse slumbering energies, and to 
awaken manly aspirations. Thousands have received new 
life at her altars, and have gone forth animated by a new 
hope to conquer for themselves a support in the world. It 
is this work that other societies cannot do, and it is this 
that is especially needed to diminish the proportions of 
pauperism, and which, in failing to accomplish by alienat- 
ing the poor, the church stands justly charged with re- 
sponsibility for its present magnitude and strength. 

My brethren, surely the time has come for us to return 
to the Lord's plan. Among us there are children to be 
clothed, widows to be aided, and afflicted ones to be cared 
for. Here and now determine to be mother, friend and 
benefactor to them all, so that within your ample bound- 
aries no child of God shall cry in vain for bread, and no 
worthy fellow-being look despairingly for sympathy or 
succor. A modest sum added to your pew-rent will be all- 
sufficient, and this supplemented by your prayers and 
thoughtful love will carry an enduring blessing to many a 
melancholy home and to many a discouraged heart. Yea, 
your gracious ministry will return the benediction to your 
own soul. It will bless the giver more than the receiver. 



344 ISMS OLD Aiq-D JSTEW. 

You will sleep more warmly in the coming winter nights, 
because of the mantle you have thrown around the form of 
shivering need; you will tread more firmly the declining 
years for the staff of support you have placed in the hands 
of aged distress, and you will sing more sweetly for the mel- 
odies you have awakened in the once mute or wailing bosom 
of gnawing want. Light will have new pleasure for you 
when it falls radiant from thankful eyes, and no diamond 
that ever shone on maiden's brow will be to you as pre- 
cious as the silent, glistening tear of gratitude bedewing 
your hand of charity. As you draw nearer to the poor, 
the Savior will come nearer you. In their presence you 
will feel that you are in His. The legends of Saint Chris- 
topher and of Saint Julien will be translated into the ver- 
nacular of your experience. The orphan child you carry 
across the swirling ctream in your embrace will grow into 
the Christ, and the stranger you rescue from the pitiless 
storm and from the dreary night will be transformed into 
the Savior; and then will you discern the meaning of those 
gracious words: "As ye did it unto one of the least of 
these, ye did it unto me." And then, stealing over your 
soul like the music of the morning, will sweetly chime the 
Master's welcome, assurance of eternal rest: "Come, ye 
blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world." 



ALTRUISM. 

"For whosoever "uill save his life shall lose it, and whosoever 
shall lose his life for my sake shall find it." Matt, xvi, 25. 

"Abou Ben Adhem, — may his tribe increase ! — 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw amid the moonlight in his room, 
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, 
An angel writing in a book of gold ; 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold. 
And to the vision in the room he said, 
' What writest thou ? ' The vision nused its head. 
And with a voice made of all sweet accord 
Replied, ' The names of them that love the Lord.' 
' And is mine one ? ' said Abou. ' Nay, not so,' 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low. 
But cheerly still, and said, ' I pray thee, then. 
Write me as one who loves his fellow men.' 

" The angel wrote and vanished.- The next night 
He came again with a great wakening light ; 
He showed the names whom love of God had blest. 
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." 

Leigh Hunt. 

WHILE with deepest solicitude a serious man will 
address himself to the question of his soul's salva- 
tion, with hardly less earnestness will he seek to know 
how he may save his life. The two lines of inquiry, 
though intimately blending, are not identical; for even 
when anxiety regarding the future world has been entirely 
allayed, dissatisfaction with the experiences of the present 
may be sorely felt. Many religious people who have no 
kind of doubt as to their acceptance with God are pain- 
fully conscious that they are of little service to man. 

345 



846 ISMS OLD AiTD NEW. 

They find no genuine enjoyment in their pursuits, their 
triumphs and their pleasures. Their daily life is barren, 
commonplace and uninteresting. They grow infinitely 
fatigued with its routine, and were it not impious, they 
could wish for its speedy termination. Their attitude is 
one of moody resignation and of stolid submission. Life 
is endured because it would be sinful to end it, and its 
ghastly possessors smile sepulchrally at each other, and try 
to make each other believe that it is relished. The thin 
hypocrisy, however, cannot conceal the truth that a very 
large number of people, religious and non-religious, have 
no very distinct idea as to why they were born, what they 
are here for, or how they are to derive from existence suf- 
ficient satisfaction to compensate for the evils they are 
forced to endure. Life to them is a sky without stars, a 
star without radiance, a garden without flowers, a flower 
without perfume, an orchestra without music, music with- 
out harmony. Evidently they have missed its secret, 
have not discovered its art, and are in imminent peril of 
dying without having truly lived. 

When they are oppressed by the consciousness of this 
fact, and begin to discern and believe that there must be 
a sweetness and profit in life hitherto concealed from 
them, and to inquire with reference to it, " What must I 
do to be saved ? " a crisis is reached only second, if indeed 
it be second, to that which prompted the soul to give 
utterance to a similar cry when burdened with a sense of 
guilt. And it is a cause of rejoicing that the Book which 
furnishes an adequate answer to the appeal of the soul 
has not failed to supply a principle for the conservation of 
the life. That principle is stated tersely and paradoxically 
in the words of the text, — words which we shall do well 
to lay to heart on the close of this sermon-series, — and 
which, if fairly interpreted and honestly received, may 



SPIN^OZA AND GEORGE ELIOT. 347 

render our future more useful, and infinitely more gratify- 
ing, than has been our past. 

George Eliot has given her reading of the problem, 
representing a school of thought which is entitled to 
respectful consideration, though it may at times awaken 
commiseration. In early years, influenced by such books 
as Strauss' Life of Jesus and Feuerbach's Essence of 
Christianity, she drifted away from the faith of the 
church, and embraced sentiments which are now currently 
known as "Altruistic." She was undoubtedly the grand- 
est representative and the noblest advocate which these 
views have ever had, and what she has not directly or in- 
directly said in their behalf is hardly worth saying. While 
the essence of Altruism is expressed by Spinoza in the 
famous passage " He who loves God must not desire God 
to love him in return," we get a clearer view of its sweep 
and scope from the works of its acknowledged champion. 
According to its teachings, the religion of humanity pre- 
scribes as its first, and perhaps only, law that we should 
devote ourselves absolutely to the well-being of others, 
and should so subordinate every selfish instinct to this 
supreme object as to be unaffected by hopes of rewards or 
fears of punishment. Virtue is identified with total dis- 
interestedness, and duty is degraded, loses its character, 
and is changed to expediency when it is associated with 
thought of motives. Immortality, the world beyond, the 
favor of God, and even the happiness of self, are unworthy 
a moment's attention; for the former are beclouded with 
uncertainty, and the latter consideration is utterly despi- 
cable. Altruism and Agnosticism shake hands, and are in 
brotherly agreement. The second claims that we are in 
ignorance concerning everything beyond the range of our 
senses, and the first declares that we ought not to permit 
the Unknowable to influence our conduct. Unquestionably 
George Eliot is correct in magnifying the duty of loving 



348 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

self-sacrifice for others. This is essentially the doctrine of 
the Bible. We are "to esteem others better than our- 
selves," we are to "love our neighbor as ourselves," v^^e 
are " to bear each other's burdens," and so to " fulfill the 
lav7 of Christ." Nay more, we are also to devote our- 
selves to God's service, and to surrender all that we have, 
if necessary, to further His holy will and pleasure. We 
are to count ourselves least, to hold ourselves as dead to 
our own selfish interests, and to count not our life dear if 
we can by any means save others. To this extent Chris- 
tianity is altruistic, and as far as this central principle 
of self-abnegation goes I have only words of respect and 
admiration for this Ism and its advocates. But Christian- 
ity does not sanction their wholesale repudiation of mo- 
tives. While it is far from appealing to selfish fear or 
mercenary hope, it does recognize the fact that man is 
susceptible to various influences, and that he is moved by 
inducements more or less refined and noble. It aims to 
sway him by considerations which will meet this part of 
his nature, and yet do so in such a way as to deepen in 
his heart the spirit of thoughtful love and self-sacrifice for 
others. In other words, its supreme motive is of such a 
character that the more it is felt the less will men think of 
themselves or of their own interests, and the less will they 
be given to vain egotism and narrow selfishness. This 
Christian Altruism, if I may be allowed to combine terms 
usually hostile, is expressed by our Lord in the text, and 
if seriously pondered and thoroughly comprehended will, 
I am persuaded, commend itself to every man's conscience 
in the sight of God. 

After the disciples had confessed that Jesus was the 
Christ, they were startled and overwhelmed by His decla- 
ration " that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many 
things of the elders and chief jDriests and scribes, and be 
killed, and be raised again the third day." This volun- 



THE KEMONSTRANCE. 349 

tary surrender to what seemed unnecessary suffering espe- 
cially appealed to the feelings of Peter, who immediately 
and earnestly remonstrated, saying: "Be it far from 
Thee, Master; this shall not be unto Thee." In our ver- 
sion we have the expression that Peter "rebuked" Jesus, 
but the original does not convey this impression, and our 
own sense of the respect in which the disciple must have 
held his Lord will not permit us to suppose that he pre- 
sumed to employ language so irreverent. He did not 
reprove; he rather expostulated with Him, whom he had 
so recently acknowledged as the Messiah, and sought to 
dissuade from His fatal purpose. The marginal reading 
reveals the spirit in which the apostle made this appeal. 
As there given his language is " Pity Thyself," that is, 
"Be merciful to Thyself, and do not go to Jerusalem; 
attain the end of Thine mission without suffering and 
shame." Alas ! Peter, like many of my readers, did not 
understand the real significance and the strange mystery 
of life. He seemed to labor under the delusion that 
Christ could accomplish His sublime purpose of mercy at 
ease, surrounded with every comfort, in an autocratic 
manner, and that, as God in the beginning " commanded 
and it stood fast," so all that the Master had to do was 
"to speak and it would be done." This seemed to be his 
idea, but it was not Christ's. Rudely was he roused from 
his delusion by the stern words of the Savior, almost iden- 
tical with those addressed to Satan on the occasion of the 
temptation, " Get thee behind me, for thou savorest not 
the things that be of God." Just as the devil had tried 
to induce Him to seek an easy and short road to success 
by " falling down and worshiping him," so Peter had pre- 
sumed to suggest the possibility of victory without con- 
flict. In both instances the great law of life was ignored, 
and the fruitful source of its perversion and failure was 
insinuated. 



350 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

Straightway the Savior corrects the error of His ser- 
vant. He shows that his attitude is not exceptional; that 
he is neither erratic nor eccentric, but that what is true of 
Himself is also true of all men. Even as He "to rise 
again the third day," with power and in glory, and to 
actualize the sublimest possibilities of His existence, must 
travel the highway of death, so in a 'similar, though infe- 
rior sense, every disciple, yea, and every man who would 
save his life from uselessness, perversion and dishonor, 
must consent to lose it. There is one law applicable to 
all alike, to the Savior and the saint, to the saint and the 
sinner. The seed-corn "must die or it abideth alone," 
but if it die it "shall bear much fruit." There is that 
" which scattereth and yet increaseth," and there is " that 
which withholdeth more than is meet and that tendeth to 
poverty;" and there is that which deals with life as a 
miser deals with money, and that loses it at the end. 

Never has any real benefit been conferred on society, 
or any permanent advantage been secured without cost- 
ing somebody suffering and loss. As the old Latin poet 
sings, 

" Not for themselves birds rear the nest, " 
Or bears its woolly fleece the sheep, 
"Or builds the bee its honeyed rest, 
Or drags the ox the ploughshare deep." 

And never was nest yet built for weary humanity, and 
never was covering wrought for its infirmities and sins, 
and never was sweetness extracted from the flower to 
mingle with the bitterness of its anguish, and never, 
never, did the share prepare the way for abundance to 
meet the famine of its mind and heart, without somebody 
performing exacting labor and enduring exhausting an- 
guish. The names of martyrs, heroes, reformers, explor- 
ers, scientists and philanthropists, the Polycarps, the 
Winkelrieds, the Savonarolas, the Magellans, the Kep- 



HINDU MYTHS. 351 

lers, and the Howards, are perpetual witnesses that no 
great victory has yet been achieved for the world apart 
from self-abnegation and self-surrender. Death seems to 
be the condition of life, and vicariousness the law of prog- 
ress. If we would deliver others from evil we must be will- 
ing to bear evil ourselves; if we would bring others into the 
light we must consent ourselves to go down into the dark- 
ness; and if we would press others upward to the mount of 
Transfiguration we must be prepared to descend into the 
valley of Achor. So deeply has this conviction impressed 
the human mind, and interblended with its thinking, that 
in the literature, and especially in the religions, of all 
lands we find it taking shape in some legend or doctrine 
by which the relation of self-sacrifice to the advancement 
and well-being of society or the world is maintained and 
illustrated. Perhaps the earliest of these representations 
are to be found among the Hindus, and I refer to them 
particularly as they at once suggest the antiquity and the 
prevalence of the principle involved. For instance, ac- 
cording to authorities cited by Johnson, the Hig Veda 
is supposed to teach that the Supreme Spirit sacrificed 
himself to create the world; and Soma is exalted in the 
" Hymns " as a " healer, and deliverer from pain," the 
Sdma Veda testifying that this deity " submits to mortal 
birth, and is bruised and afflicted that others may be 
saved." But the most splendid and thrilling illustration 
of this doctrine is contained in the Mahaprasthdnika 
Parva of the Mahabhdrata^ the "fable of faithful love 
which is stronger than death." It will repay us to glance 
hastily at the story, as it is given by Edwin Arnold in his 
translation published recently in the International He- 
vieic. 

The kingly family of the Pandavas, having received 
from saintly Yyasa a view of the invisible world, became 
discontented with royalty and determined to journey to- 



352 ISMS OLD AKD KEW. 

ward Mount Meru, " where is Indra's heaven," where all 
sorrows would terminate and union with the Infinite be 
attained. King Yudhishthira, his sister the peerless 
Draupadi, and his brethren, Arjuna, Sahadev, Nakula, 
and Bhimasena, clothed in rough habits, moved forward 
without faltering or hesitancy, through tangled forests 
and across the "wide waste of sand, dreadful as death," 
toward the East, where Paradise blooms. When they 
came in sight of Meru, Draupadi fell and died because she 
loved her husband " better than all else," better even than 
heaven. " That was her tender sin, fault of a faultless 
soul." Then Sahadev swooned and died, because "wis- 
dom made him proud;" then Nakula perished, because of 
self-satisfied love; then Arjuna followed, because "once 
he lied a worldly lie and bragged," and then Bhimasena, 
too, because he " fainted and stayed upon the way," " too 
much devoted to the goodly things of earth." 

" Thenceforth alone the long-armed monarch strode, 
Not looking back — nay! not for Bhima's sake, — 
But walking with his face set for the Mount. 
After the deathly sands, the Mount ! and lo ! 
Sakra shone forth, — the God, — filling the earth 
And heavens with thunder of his chariot wheels. 
'Ascend,' he said, 'with me, Pritha's great son!' 
But Yudhishthira answered, sore at heart 
For those his kinsfolk, fallen on the way. 

H: H: H: ^ ^ ^ % 

' They, the delightful ones, who sank and died, 
Following my footsteps, could not live again 
Though I had turned,— therefore I did not turn ; 
But could help profit, I had turned to help.' 
Indra smiled and said, 

' O thou true king. 
Thou that dost bring to harvest the good seed 
Of Pandu's righteousness . . . 
Enter thou now to the eternal joys.' " 

But Yudhishthira replied that he could not consent to 
tarry where his loved ones were not. He felt that it was 



DEATHLESS LOVE. 353 

his duty to be with them even in sorrow, and expressed a 
wish to join their company. A golden Deva was there- 
fore sent to conduct him where his kinsmen were. On- 
ward they went together treading "the sinners' road." 

" The tread of sinful feet 
Matted the thick thorns carpeting its sIoidc; 
The smell of sin hung foul on them ; the mire 
About their roots was trampled filth of flesh 
Horrid with rottenness, and splashed with gore, 
Curdling in crimson puddles ; where there buzzed 
And sucked and settled creatures of the swamp. 
Hideous in wing and sting, gnat-clouds and flies, 
With moths, toads, newts, and snakes red-gulleted. 
And livid, loathsome worms, writhing in slime 
Forth from skull-holes and scalps and tumbled bones." 

Thus the king reached Kutashala Mali, gate of utmost 
Hell, and for a moment paused; and then pressed on amid 
piteous groans, bringing by his presence mitigation of 
suffering to the wretched captives. At last he meets his 
unfortunate relatives, and ministers some solace to their 
agonizing hearts. Finding that partnership in their an- 
guish affords them relief, he exclaims: 

*' I stand 
Here in the throat of Hell, and here will bide — 
Nay, if I perish — while my well-beloved 
Win ease and peace by any pains of mine." 

This readiness to brave hell for love excited the admira- 
tion of the " Presences of Paradise," and they told him 
that all heaven was glad because of him. On his account, 
and because of his self-immolation, his friends are freed 
from dread despair, and with him enter the abode of the 
blessed and saved — "washed from soils of sin, from pas- 
sion, pain, and change." 

Beautiful and impressive as this narrative is, it does 
not surpass the gospels in their manner of enforcing the 
23 



354 ISMS OLD AI^D NEW. 

indispensableness of the vicarious principle. The entire 
movement to rescue man from sin and death proceeds on 
the supposition of its efficacy. Jesus " who was rich be- 
comes poor, that we through His poverty might be rich"; 
"He dies the just for the unjust that he might bring us 
to God "; " He redeems us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us " ; and thus these special benefits to 
us are all conditioned on His becoming poor, being made 
a curse, and suffering the pangs of death. Explain as we 
may the precise meaning of these passages, the one domi- 
nant thought pervades them all, that to save the life of 
others Jesus had to lose his own. The same principle 
reveals itself conspicuously in His followers and in their 
teachings. Paul could wish himself accursed from Christ 
for Israel's sake; Peter rejoiced in being a partaker of 
Christ's sufferings; and perhaps all of the sacred writers 
in some form recognized the fact that nothing could be 
done for the world in the spirit of self-seeking or of self- 
indulgent somnolence. We may, therefore, conclude that 
on no point in the entire domain of religious and moral 
thought is there such general agreement as on this; and 
that, if we would really help the world, we must be ready 
to surrender self in sacrifice. 

To understand what our Lord means by losing life we 
may with profit consult the force of the prescription con- 
tained in the preceding verse. He there declares that His 
disciples must deny themselves, must take up their cross 
and follow Him. As this unquestionably is tantamount to 
*' losing life," it is of the highest moment that we should 
apprehend distinctly the meaning of the language. It 
may also assist us to remember that He Himself is the 
clearest exemplification of the principle He inculcates, 
and that it must aid us to study it in the light of His 
personal history. 

Certainly by self-denial He does not intend to recom- 



LAW OF SELF-SACRIFICE. 355 

mend anything of an artificial and perfunctory character. 
There have always been ascetically-minded individuals 
who have interpreted our Lord's words as enjoining some 
self-imposed sufferings. Hence they have afflicted their 
bodies, have sought out curious means of torturing them- 
selves, as though a man in the discharge of his duty would 
not encounter trials and pains enough to satisfy the most 
morbid without taking the trouble to invent them. They 
have scourged themselves with whips, as though the ene- 
mies of righteousness would fail to scourge them with 
scorpions ; they have withdrawn from their families, as 
though their flesh and blood would not of its own accord 
raise its hand against godliness; and they have alienated 
their property and voluntarily become poor, as though 
there were not worldly cormorants in sufficient numbers, 
and with appetites sufficiently voracious, to devour all 
their substance. Saints of a less heroic mood have felt 
it incumbent on themselves to wear unsightly garments, 
to look with scorn on the harmless amusements of society, 
to perform vigils and fastings, and to make themselves as 
unamiable and as uncomfortable as possible. But Christ 
never countenanced in His own life any such interpreta- 
tion of His words. He never formally undertook a fast. 
When He abstained from bread the stress of His feelings 
was such that He had no appetite for food. He never 
withdrew from a pleasure that came not in the way of His 
work, nor did He wear a robe to distinguish Him from 
others, and equally far was it from His thought to afflict 
His body in any way. In other words. He never regarded 
it as needful to be His own enemy in a world where ene- 
mies were thick on every side. Whatever difficulties, 
whatever sufferings, whatever burdens had to be endured 
in the course of His ministry. He submitted to unrepin- 
ingly and patiently, and these were as much as He could 
bear. And it is not necessary, nor is it modest, for the 



356 ISMS OLD AND KEW. 

disciple to pretend to a higher degree of self-abnegation 
than his Lord. He, too, will have his trials and his ago- 
nies, and if he will only meet them in the spirit of his 
Master he need not undertake to convert his meager gar- 
den into a wilderness, nor his little day into night. 

Not infrequently are Christians heard to speak of du- 
ties as crosses to be borne, and I am convinced that some 
among them regard their performance as a complete com- 
pliance with the law of self-denial. It is a cross to pray, 
to speak, to commend Christ to others, to attend church, 
to frequent the social meetings, and, indeed, to do any- 
thing of a distinctly religious nature. By the force of 
their will and with the aid of sundry admonitions they 
bring themselves up to the discharge of these obligations, 
but on the whole they feel that it should entitle them to a 
place in "the noble army of martyrs." I am sorry to dissi- 
pate the comfortable illusion, but I am compelled to assure 
them that they totally misapprehend the doctrine of our 
Lord. He said that it was His meat and drink to do the 
will of His Father, and He never once refers to duty in 
any other way than as a delight. The cross was something 
distinct from it, and incidental to it, but never to be iden- 
tified with it; and if we look upon it otherwise, if we find 
no honest joy in the service of God, and if we fail to dis- 
criminate between that and the pangs and pains to which 
it may give rise, we shall fall infinitely short of the 
conception embodied in the language of Christ. 

To deny oneself, to take up the cross, denotes some- 
thing immeasurably grander than self-imposed penance or 
rigid conformity to a Divine statute. It is the free sur- 
render of self to an ennobling work, an absolute subordi- 
nation of personal advantages and of personal pleasures 
for the sake of truth and the welfare of others, and a will- 
ing acceptance of every disability which their interests 
may entail. It is the sacrifice of life, as life is understood 



ILLUSTRATIONS 357 

among men, of the absorbing care with which it is usually 
regarded, of the greatness to w^hich it may attain, of the 
comforts which it may enjoy, and of the honors where- 
with it may be crowned. In Christ this spirit prompted, 
for the sake of human redemption, the abandonment of 
heaven's glory and the endurance of earthly shame. It 
constrained Him to become of no reputation, to assume 
the form of a servant, and to carry His obedience even 
unto the death of the cross. In such a man as Paul it 
moved him to seek the world's welfare at the expense of 
his social standing, his friends' approval, his earthly pros- 
pects, and his personal safety. In such men as Bruno and 
Galileo it inspired, for the emancipation of truth as truth, 
a zeal and self-forgetfulness, and the sacrifice of ecclesias- 
tical favor, the comforts of home, and the dignities of life. 
In the mother, for the sake of her children, it leads to 
wakefulness while others sleep, to solicitude when others 
lau2:h, and to an absolute mero-ino- of her selfhood in 
theirs. She carries their burdens, drinks deeper of their 
sorrows than of her own, and deprives herself of every 
pleasure that theirs may be increased. In the patriot it 
creates an unselfish devotion that influences him to subor- 
dinate personal preferences, considerations, aspirations and 
ambitions to the public weal. And in the minister of the 
gospel it enkindles a flame of love, a consuming passion 
for the salvation and elevation of humianity, in which all 
thought of self is burned away, and before which all idea 
of self-aggrandizement, reputation and honor is brought to 
naught. Possible in every calling and pursuit, and among 
every class and condition of mankind, its radical character- 
istic is a recognition of something in the universe grander 
than personal well-being, and a voluntary consecration of 
everything that enters into temporal well-being to the 
interests of whatever that ideal something may be. 

This, in my opinion, is what the Savior meant by "los- 



358 ISMS OLD AKD N"EW. 

ing life," and doubtless when He laid aside His glory and 
entered into the world of sin, the angels, who understood 
not the mystery of redemption, plead with Him, as did 
Peter, at a later day, "to be pitiful to himself." I can 
conceive of them as meekly remonstrating with Him not 
to lose His life, for to their sight, blinded by excess of 
peaceful blessedness, it must have seemed that His self- 
sacrifice was indeed the extreme of unthriftiness. But if 
they never indulged so misguided a judgment, it cannot 
be said that our fellow-beings have been wiser. Many of 
them have only seen in self-sacrifice the wildest fanaticism 
and the most foolish prodigality. To the apostle bound 
to go to Jerusalem and to Rome, where dangers and ene- 
mies awaited him, they have uttered their protest born of 
worldly wisdom. To the scientist they have said: "Why 
pursue your investigations at such a cost as your ease and 
happiness? Why not cherish your opinions in secret, and 
leave an ungrateful and unsympathizing community to its 
ignorance? Be merciful to thyself." To the mother they 
have offered their commiseration, and have not hesitated 
to express the conviction that she was wasting her life, 
and that she should eat, drink, dance, and be merry, as 
on the morrow she would die. And to all others moved 
by a lofty purpose, and inspired by a great idea, such as 
patriots and ministers, they have chattered the same ex- 
postulations, warning them that if they were not less zeal- 
ous they would cut short their days, or die in poverty, as 
though sudden death or lack of riches was the most terri- 
rible of evils. "Be merciful to yourselves," echoes the 
voices of these earth-blinded souls; "be pitiful to your- 
selves, do not throw away your life, be considerate of your 
own interests, and mindful of your own welfare. Do not 
throw away your life, we beseech you; you have only one, 
husband it, care for it, cherish it, v/rap it in a napkin and 
bury it where it will be safe." 



SAVING TO LOSE. 359 

When, two or three years ago, in our religious gather- 
ings we sung the lines, 

"Oh! to be nothing, nothing, 

But simply to lie at His feet, * . 

A broken, empty vessel, 

For the Master's use made meet." 

the sentiment was received in some quarters with derision. 
It was said sarcastically, " what have such cities as New 
York, Boston, or Chicago, in common with such self-ab- 
negation ?" "The age," it was declared, "is self-assert- 
ive, and the thought of this hymn is utterly foreign to its 
spirit and its life." Unquestionably the criticism has 
some foundation in fact; but admitting this to be cor- 
rect, it does not condemn the sentiment of the hymn, but 
rather the temper of our times. Unhappy are we if our 
civilization has so materialized us that no room can be 
found for the generous devotion of self to a worthy and 
sublime enterprise, if there is nothing higher for a man on 
earth than the zealous promotion of his own worldly in- 
terests. Christ not only rebukes, but also states the 
essential folly of such a theory. In His turn He remon- 
strates with humanity, in substance saying: "Be merciful 
to thyself; for whosoever will save his life shall lose it." 
What the Savior taught upon this point has not only 
been reiterated by His disciples, but even some of the 
heathen have recognized its essential soundness. With 
a clearness that may well put to shame the boasted broad- 
ness and discernment of our age, it was perceived by sev- 
eral of the wiser pagans that to be something life must be 
nothing, and that to save it it must be lost. One of these 
writers I quote, and only one, and he a representative • 
of that Asiatic thought which some restless minds are 
seeking in our day to array against Christianity, who 
elaborates into a philosophy what .Jesus delivered as an 
apothegm. I refer to Lau-Tsze, the Chinese, who was 



360 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

contemporary with Confucius, and who excelled that 
celebrated personage in the grandeur of his teachings. 
Six hundred years before Christ he gave utterance to the 
fallowing sentiment: "The sage does not lay up treas- 
ures. The more he does for others the more he has of his 
own. The more he gives to others the more he is in- 
creased." On which sentiment the translator and editor 
of his works offers the following comment from Bunyan: 

"A man there was, though some did count him mad, 
The more he gave away the more he had." 

In another place this ancient sage exclaims: "He who 
bears the reproach of his country shall be called the lord 
of the land. He who bears the calamities of his country 
shall be called the king of the world." . . . " He that 
makes mars. He that grasps loses. The sage makes 
nothing, therefore he mars nothing. He grasps nothing, 
therefore he loses nothing." . . . "When he wishes to be 
before the people he must, in his person, keep behind 
them. When he wishes to be above the people he must, 
in his language, keep below them." He also declared 
" that he that is diminished shall succeed," and to him 
may be traced the pregnant suggestion, expressed by 
Oken, "Zero is the essence of mathematics." Just as we 
are able by the sign " " to make the most abstruse and 
complicated calculations, so when a man descends to that 
sio-n of nothino-ness is he able to rise to the sublimest 
heights of potency and greatness. As zero is the very sub- 
stance of mathematical science, so self-denial is the very 
substance of personal usefulness. Or, as the Talmud has 
it: "Whosoever runs after greatness, greatness runs away 
from him; whosoever runs from greatness, greatness fol- 
lows him." Which is just equal to saying: "Whosoever 
will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his 
life for my sake shall save it." 



ENLARGING LIFE. 361 

While it is well to recall the fact that thoughtful souls 
of pre-Christian ages have approved the principle com- 
mended by the Savior, we should at the same time realize 
that it is not only attested by evidence, but is grounded 
in common sense. What more reasonable than the belief 
that life becomes broader, deeper, fuller, more abundant, 
in proportion as it is concerned with the interests of 
others ? By identifying itself with the lives of many, by 
making their cause its own, by entering sympathetically 
into all their sorrows, hopes and fears it must inevitably 
enlarge its own capacity and elevate its character. Just 
as the heavens increase in radiance proportionate to the 
multiplication of stars that gleam in their vault; just as 
the winds increase in fragrance according to the extent 
of sweet-scented fields over which they blow; and just as 
the river grows in fullness, the greater the number of 
streams that flow into its bosom, so life must become 
more luminous, more fragrant and more complete the 
more it admits the hopes of others to a place in its sky, 
and mingles the griefs and cares of others in its floods. 
The mother is conscious of an expansiveness of soul, and 
of a peculiar personal elevation that comes with her self- 
surrender for her child. And the more she denies herself 
the pleasures of society, when they seem to conflict with 
devotion to her offspring, the more ennobled does she feel, 
and, in reality, the more ennobled she is. Another star 
glitters in the azure of her love, and though a tiny one, 
it brightens the path of her feet. The man who is en- 
tirely absorbed in business, who has no thought beyond 
its marts, and no ambition higher than its gains, may, in 
many respects, be very estimable, but obviously his spirit- 
ual stature cannot be as great, nor his capacity for enjoy- 
ment be as large, as they would be were he steadfastly to 
make his temporal affairs directly tributary to the well- 
being of humanity. In the former case he becomes grad- 



362 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

ually assimilated to the dryness, hardness and narrowness 
of his pursuits; but in the latter, like Lorenzo De' Medici, 
he grows toward the fair or grand ideal for the actualiza- 
tion of which he cheerfully endures the daily round of 
monotonous toil and care. Hence it is that in trade 
and commercial circles we frequently meet with men who 
tower above their associates, and whose presence carries 
with it sunshine and peace. They are poets, artists, saints 
or scholars in their instincts; they desire to beautify, 
sanctify and enlighten the race; and swayed by this pas- 
sion they rise early, retire late, and submit to all kinds of 
self-denial that means may be procured for its gratifica- 
tion, and in doing this they themselves become beautified, 
sanctified and enlightened. 

During my various wanderings in the old world I have 
frequently been reminded of this truth. There are ancient 
churches in Europe which the American traveler soon 
learns to venerate, not merely because they are the shrines 
of Deity, but because they have become the memorials of 
human greatness. Indeed, God is less thought of than 
man within the sacred walls of Westminster, Santa Croce, 
and the French Pantheon. There, mingling with the dust 
of kings and princes, rest the honored ashes of the martyr- 
heroes both of science and religion, the explorers of na- 
ture's mysteries, the prophets of the world's progress. 
And vet these were the very men whose names were cast 
out as evil by their own times, who were derided as fanat- 
ics and dreamers, who were denounced as disturbers and 
iconoclasts, who were pitied by friends and hated by ene- 
mies, whose senseless remains are now entombed in so 
much state. Verily, the fanatics of one age become the 
gods of another, and the dreamy enthusiasts of the past 
are the sober commonplaces of the present. In London, 
Paris and Florence the same moral appears between the 
lines of epitaphs penned by the descendants of persecutors 



EUROPEANS AND AMERICANS. 363 

in commemoration of the persecuted: ^'Whoever will lose 
his life shall save it"; for who can doubt that Dante, Gal- 
ileo, Copernicus, Bruno, Columbus, and the rest of their 
fraternity, gained more in their consciousness of personal 
superiority, and derived more satisfaction from their ex- 
alted thoughts, than they sacrificed in temporal estate, 
even as they have risen to such a height of dignity and 
power as more than compensates for all they surrendered 
or endured. 

Conversing recently with an acquaintance at Dresden 
on continental habits, surprise was expressed that Ameri- 
cans were so indifferent to the attractions of the cafe and 
the open-air concert. It was said that they made life 
too serious, and deprived themselves unnecessarily of 
many of its pleasures. The criticism and the censure on 
the surface seem to be just, and yet they are not as con- 
clusive as they appear. Compare life on both continents, 
and the opinion of our critic will hardly stand. In reality 
he assumes that the end of human existence is the cafe or 
the concert-garden. The average European performs his 
appointed task patiently, if not cheerfully, and if he can 
sip his wine or beer and hear music, — music, by the way, 
not infrequently of an excruciating type, — he is satisfied. 
That he calls " living," and, in the meanwhile, he permits 
himself to be drafted into armies, consents to pay enor- 
mous taxes for the support of senseless royalty, and grubs 
along from the cradle to the grave with a benumbed con- 
sciousness of what he is and what he should be. Such 
people may live more years than the average American, 
but they do not live as much in any or all of them as he. 
He does not regard amusement as the chief end of man, 
but liberty, culture, mental and spiritual growth, the ser- 
vice of God, and the elevation of his fellow-beings. As a 
consequence,, his experiences are more diversified, his re- 
sources more varied, and his existence more complex and 



364 ISMS OLD AND NEW. 

complete. What he loses is not worthy of consideration 
in view of what he gains. Better, far better, sacrifice 
seductive pleasures, pleasures that emasculate, and that 
perjDetuate dull submission to oppressive systems, if by 
doing so the sense of freedom, of personal independence, 
and of responsibility for the condition of others may be 
w^on. This is the choice of our people, and I think his- 
tory proves that it is never successfully made where time 
and thought are to any extent bestowed on sentient indul- 
gencies and dissipating follies. If the citizens of any 
country would save their highest life, and the only life 
worth living, they must be willing to lose their lowest, 
and which, after all, is not worth preserving. T need not 
attempt to show you how this princij^le is confirmed in our 
Savior's history, or that it is the most obvious teaching 
of the New Testament. He who was made poor is now 
rich; He who bore the cross on earth is now seated on the 
throne in heaven; He who w^as embraced of death is now 
alive forevermore; He who, in Peter's judgment, ought to 
have had more mercy on Himself has convinced His err- 
ing servant that He really did compassionate Himself 
when He chose to ascend the hill of shame; for that, and 
that alone, led to the height of glory. 

From this line of thouglit it is not diflficult to perceive 
that a man can come to feel real delio-ht in the sfift of ex- 
istence, and can attain to conscious enjoyment of the life 
to which he has been called by God. Of the refined and 
elevating nature of this enjoyment there can be no doubt, 
and the only question that remains to be considered is 
whether as a motive to action it is commendable and 
legitimate. Or, to frame the ijiquiry differently, whether 
we may with propriety be influenced by considerations of 
our own well beino; to seek the well beino- of others? 
Altruists think not. They argue that a subtle selfishness 
is interwoven with all such considerations ; that every 



THE UNSELFISH MOTIVE. 365 

kind of motive impairs the character of virtue, and that 
duty should be performed simply because it ought to be 
performed. To Christian people this seems to be an ex- 
treme view to take of the matter; nor can they see how 
the idea of motive is to be' eliminated from right conduct. 
For instance, is not the very sense of oughtness, on which 
the Altruist lays so much stress, in itself a motive of the 
weightiest kind? If that ceased to control, would not 
practical righteousness fall into decay ? But whether we 
regard it as a motive or not, we believe that it is right to 
do good to those around us; and it cannot be denied that 
the reasons we have for this belief are equally conclusive 
in favor of our doing good to ourselves. Altruists and all 
agree that it would be contrary to nature for us not to 
have concern for the happiness of the race, and it is 
equally evident that it would be no less contrary to nature 
for us to be indifferent to our own. The instinct of self- 
preservation, the horror we have of suicidal recklessness, 
and the contempt we feel for those slatternly individuals 
who are heedless of their standing and influence, suffi- 
ciently prove that the obligation to seek in some sense 
our own is an everlasthig reality. It has always been 
more or less of a problem to know how this can be done, 
and the individual at the same time be preserved from 
utter and irremediable selfishness; and when it is shown 
that it can be effected by devotion to the interests of 
those around us the practical philanthropy involved in the 
method certainly justifies and glorifies the motive. There- 
fore I am convinced tliat this motive is not fairly open to 
the objections which are so freely pronounced by Altruists, 
and that in being influenced by it we are neither degrad- 
ing ourselves nor corrupting the idea of virtue. 

Thomas a Kempis, writing on the duty of self-renuncia- 
tion, exclaims: "O Lord, this is not the work of one day, 
nor children's sport; yea, rather in this short word is in- 



366 ISMS OLD A2TD KEW. 

eluded all perfection." It is well that we lay this thought 
to heart. With honesty of purpose we may decide hence- 
forward to j^ractice the law of self-denial, but never having 
measured the difficulties in the way we may speedily be 
discouraged. Our egoism, our self-love, and the examjjle 
of multitudes around us, may suggest the hopelessness of 
the undertaking, and we may be driven back to our old 
self-seeking and to the degradation of self-worship. We 
may escape this sad experience if we will but remember 
what a Kempis teaches, that such a life is "not the work 
of one day," and that, consequently, we should not aban- 
don our sublime task because we meet with defeats and 
failures in its performance. Persevere; exercise yourselves 
continually unto self-renunciation, and gradually will you 
overcome all obstacles to a complete conformity to Him 
who "loved us and who gave Himself for us." 

If you can only be persuaded by what has been said to 
undertake this, "the life of the Son of Man in the flesh," 
you will soon cease to question its moral grandeur. The 
staleness and monotony will speedily disaj^pear, and you 
will realize that you have at last discovered the secret of 
its profit and its power. Instead of being a burden it will 
be a blessing to you; the bloom will return to its cheek, 
the luster to its eye, the dew to its forehead- You will 
rejoice to possess it; you will delight in its experiences; 
you will be glad in its trials. Life will be to you entirely 
different from what it has been; it will be invested with a 
new charm, a fresh beauty, a solemn glory. Yea, you will 
be led repeatedly to exclaim: "That which was lost is 
found, and the dead is alive again." Rejoicing in its sal- 
vation, you will contemplate its close with hope, believing 
that that which has yielded you so much satisfaction here 
will multiply your joys hereafter. You will look for the 
life on earth to wreathe crowns for the life in glory, and 
you will part from it below sustained by the prospect of 



LIFE IN DEATH. 367 

greeting it above. In this sweet confidence may you 
abide, my reader; may each day be filled with music, and 
each night with peace; and when the hour of separation 
comes may your blood-washed soul chant in tenderest 
strains the fond adieu: 

" Life ! we've been long together, 
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear, — 
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; 
Then steal away, give little warning, 
Choose thine own time ; 

Say not "Good Night" — but in some brighter clime 
Bid me " Good Morning." 



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